Snow Bike Tires, Robotics, and Inadvisable Trekking

Winter's now covered the un-raked leaves with snow and I find myself with jars of home-made crab apple sauce, studded snow tires on my (mom's) bike, and a job teaching at Pacific Northern Academy (PNA), a private K-12 school in Anchorage, Alaska. I teach dance two days a week after school and substitute teach for PE (run around! now do it again!), Math (rise over run), Science (you're supposed to kill all these fruit flies?), Music (recorders!), Spanish (se habla español?), and whatever else they call me for. The whole school thing is all rather strange to me, but I'm getting used to the constructed format, classroom management techniques, and imposed social standards. Then the Robotics teacher quit at PNA. Knowing nothing about robotics or the devious nature of my 4th and 5th grade charges, I was happily coerced into that job too.

My Robotics kids will (hopefully) compete in a Lego sponsored competition called First Lego League that has two parts:
Part 1: Research Presentation. Learn about different forms of energy (all over it), do an "energy audit" on a building in their community (check), figure out a way to make that building more energy efficient (they're pretty excited about destroying the building to reduce its energy consumption to 0), create a presentation about their solution (ummm), and present to the community (great things take time...).
Part 2: Get quirky Lego-loving kids to program uncooperative Lego robot to complete 13 energy related tasks, like replace a red Lego truck with a cool black and yellow bumble-hydrogen-car, not spill oil into the ocean (40 point deduction), and collect all the Lego coal from the mine. With creative classroom management techniques in place (Robotics Bucks!), which my robotics masters briefly allow me to coerce them with, we've figured out how to launch the solar powered satellite, place the wind turbines, and get our wave turbine stuck on the red truck. Not bad.

To fully complement my opposite-normal-working-hours schedule, I'm taking evening EMT classes at the University of Alaska, Anchorage (UAA), learning all sorts of ways to get people from injury to ambulance in a fashion that hopefully lets them survive all the way to the hospital. However, I rode around on an ambulance a couple weeks ago and saw far less emergencies than I'd expected. The EMT on duty growled that most of his patients need social services more than emergency medical services, and I think I'm inclined to agree. I'm also curious and concerned as to what happens when the couldn't-afford-a-cab-so-called-an-ambulance folks get an emergency medicine sized bill.

Grand Canyon from the South Rim

In pursuit of my own ambulance ride, my family (and pretty much family) reunion-ed at the grand canyon to hike rim to rim in September. Serious Advisory Notice: DO NOT hike in the Grand Canyon without a whole lot of water and snacks, as even beautiful, young, athletic folks die from trying. As Mom, Chris, Chris Loken, me, Uncle Kim, and Lucille didn't resemble any of the beautiful, young, athletic people on the warning pictures, and came fully equipped with about a gallon of water each, tasty vittles, and enough energy bars to fuel all the unprepared individuals we could find along the way, we set out before the sun rose from the North Rim.

Uncle Kim Living Dangerously

Down through the layers we plunged, stopping for a lunch of smoked salmon, cheese, and chocolate at the bottom in 101 degree weather (melty). Then along the Colorado river, and up towards an increasingly distant South Rim. Soon the sun set and our pace slowed from dawdle through trudge, verging increasingly on stumble. Our courageous Dad and Jim support crew patiently watched our headlights inch closer until we emerged from our marathon-length journey with water still on our backs and enough energy to swap exhaustion-enhanced tales of inadvisable trekking. Only a day's drive away, we next re-visited my childhood hiking grounds, where support crew and all wandered into the Havasupai canyon for a three day trek full of fry bread, mule manure, and green waterfalls.

Dad at Mooney Falls

Chris Playing in Havasu Falls

My exercise regime has continued in the great North with daily bike rides towards a more sustainable planet and an increasingly aware Katie. I've moved from my folks' castle on the hill to a flat in the low country that's complete with Dustin Madden, golden retriever Aurora, roommate Derrick, and a close enough proximity to bike where I need to go. I'm beginning to understand how zoning effects transportation (no light commercial in residential areas makes for a long ride to the grocery store), socio-economic stresses (how could anyone without a car get any sleep with a full time job and Anchorage's roundabout bus system?), and weather effects (leaving freshly washed hair outside the jacket induces freezing).

In dancing, Dustin and I teach a weekly social dance class (this week, Argentine Tango!) where we laugh and move around a bunch, although we took a break last week to guest instruct Lindy Hop at UAA, where there's a dance floor and mirrors and very dancer-y students, oh my! The teenagers of the Society Working to Improve Negative Grooves (SWING) jive and jump on a monthly basis, while the die-hards also show up on Thursdays for their fix.

Move Your Story!

And I got psyched about dancing with purpose and organized a movement and story-telling workshop ("Move Your Story") for women at UAA, which helped me figure out how to teach a movement and story-telling workshop, and how to get a group of folks to create a dance about something specific. Awesome. Also at Move Your Story, one of the dancers shared a story of a Dia de los Muertos party where everyone brought the favorite food of someone who'd died that they wanted to celebrate. My Mom and I shared a mischievous look, and schemed our own Dia de Los Muertos party last weekend!

Dia de Los Muertos is a Mexican tradition where folks believe that the dead come back to party around Oct. 31 to Nov. 2. We had some trouble with planning so our dead folks had to stick around a little longer for the party. We celebrated by bringing the pictures, stories, and favorite foods of our esteemed post-life guests to the party. However, after a dinner of tortillas, salsa, hard-boiled eggs, sour cream and herring, mashed potatoes and corn, carameled apples, and creme de menthe parfaits, I think I need to make some dead friends who liked more tummy-agreeable foods.

Planning for the future, I'm awaiting numerous conflicting opportunities to unveil themselves to me. I applied for the Artist in Schools program and if they like my poor-quality dance video, I might be able to guest instruct in schools around Alaska. The principal and staff at PNA hint at future teaching opportunities, potentially in writing, after school care, and Spanish. The Anchorage School District is set to give me my substitute teaching number sometime last week so I teach in Anchorage's public schools. And my Tanzania/China friend Dan Tuttle is currently feeding the insects of the Solomon Islands and constructing an HIV/AIDS prevention program from the ground up with SIC, who I worked with in Tanzania. Depending on how effective Dan thinks I could be there, I may head down in January to dive back into HIV/AIDS Prevention and language acquisition (pidgin!).

Until then, the banana bread is on the stove and Dustin and I are dancing tango in the kitchen.

Fishing in Prince William Sound

Goodbye Whittier!

Good times out of Whittier with Mom, Dad, and Sue in the beautiful, beautiful Prince William Sound.

One little otter...

Sea Otters!

Because of the amazingness that is Alaska, we found more sea otters than I've ever seen in my life... perhaps close to 100, with 10 or 20 together at at time, including little pups!

Dad and Glaciers

The silvers graced us with their presence, and we eagerly reeled them in. To keep them fresh, Sue pulled us close to a glacier and we went iceberg fishing with the net... icebergs really are bigger than they look. Only the smallest possible chunks were things I could haul aboard, while the rest were subject to mine and Dad's heckling (aw yeah? you think you're too big and heavy for my net now, huh? global warming is so taking you down! yeah... that's right, I see you melting in that sun...)

The Freshest Salmon

The evenings marked fish cleaning time, where I am rather less than skilled. To not waste the extra meat, Dad and I experimented with sashimi.

Playing with Shrimp

And Mom, Dad and I got to try our hands with shrimp pots...under the guidance of Captain Sue we caught over 100 on our first try!

Where Glaciers Meet

I'm always amazed by the beauty of Alaska... the black bears on shore that came out to fish, the glaciers that flow to the sea, and the spectacular mountains. Not bad for home.

Long Walks and Movement with Munchkins

Another month's gone by since I last wrote... hard to believe. My days are full of new ideas, employment-commitment-anxiety, dancing, and the great outdoors. A few weeks ago I attended a graduate seminar on Learning for Change - an introduction to the field of Adult Education and what it means, taught by my Mom's old professor from Chicago. I learned that "Adult Education" isn't necessarily just for grown-ups - it started as education for democracy, and for empowerment. Sweet. It made me think more about what I'm doing and how it does and doesn't empower people become who they'd like to be. And about who I'd like to be. My brother sent me an email the other day that says "Our goal should be to relate with others in such a way that they become stronger and more aware of how beautiful and valuable they are, and more able, when they take leave of us, to go out and powerfully express their love with others." I like it. I think I'll try it.

I spent last week teaching dance to kids ages 7-14 at a folk arts camp in Wasilla. Since learning more about this "adult education" business, I've tried to come up with new plans on how to make dance an empowering experience. So, amidst movement games and "formal" dance instruction, I had the older kids class make up their own "favorite" moves, and then we put them together into a dance that got extended throughout the camp - which the class decided to call "The Coolio Dance." They even got so excited about their dance that they performed it at the final concert, although I unfortunately wasn't there to see it (I was watching Bela Fleck... bad teacher). For the littler guys, we tried to make up our own dance, but they didn't like it, so I dropped that idea and we played freeze dance instead... I did have them all "perform" for the class at the end though, and they really like it, so cool - validation of the way they move/dance, if perhaps not empowerment. In addition to attempts at empowerment, my classes were full of laughter and silliness, as well as plenty of classroom management learning opportunities, so all in all, they made me pretty happy.

Because the "create your own move" game worked so well in my Movement for Munchkins classes (I don't think that was the official name, but hey), and with Dustin's suggestion (he's home in Nome... I have to teach all alone now...), I had the teens in my SWING class make up their own East Coast Swing moves, with the conditions that they had to be both rhythmic and leadable. The teens got into the creating dance moves idea, and, although most of the moves that came out of it may fall a bit short of the conditions I set forth, I think we all had a pretty good time.

Mom, Dad, and me in Crow Pass

Between dancing, I've gone on a couple long walks with my Mom and her friends. First, we hiked Crow Pass - a 26 mile journey up to a glacier, through two rivers, and down into a beautiful valley. I hadn't agreed to go on the full marathon with them at the beginning - Dad and I planned to hike up to Raven Glacier, then turn around and come on back. But, the crew was going at a pace I could handle, and I felt pretty good about my food, water, and energy supply. So, in front of the glacier, I agreed to go on.

The Crow Pass Crew in front of Raven Glacier

Down into the valley we slipped, stopping only to change shoes and wade across our first glacier-fed river. As we ventured onwards, the scenery was beautiful, and my snack supply was filled with chocolate-covered-ginger. By the time we got to the second river, my feet were ready for some cold-water therapy. After our group effort to make it through the 40' wide, thigh-high flow of icy water, I gained a new appreciation for how crazy Alaskans are. We just think the strangest things are great fun... Mom, the eternal optimist, told us all how athletes pay lots of money to put their sore muscles into cold temperatures to rejuvenate them, and all we have to do is wade across a river... well, my muscles did feel surprisingly rejuvenated. And to ensure that we had plenty of water treatment, the last 12 miles or so rained pretty consistently... After a few hours, Mom said she wasn't sure if leaving her pants up to use the bathroom would really make any difference in her soggy level. Onward and through we continued, making it to the other side of the pass in about 14 hours, which isn't bad. But... every year people run the Crow Pass race in about 3 hours... crazy Alaskans...

Luckily, after 7 days of rest, we all suffered from hikers' amnesia, and decided that going on another long walk would be great fun. So, off to Lost Lake, which we did eventually find. I invited my friend Hiroko, the local Argentine Tango teacher, and goodness, she's speedy! However, the weather was much sunnier than our Crow Pass experience, the miles only numbered 17, and Hiroko even made rice balls with sour plum inside for our lunch break. Tasty.

"The Mill" at Kennicott

In lieu of more walking, last weekend Mom and Dad and I headed up to Kennicott (of Kennecott, or Kennycott), an abandoned mine about 8 hours drive from Anchorage. In the early 1900's, a phenomenal copper deposit was found next to a glacier in the middle of nowhere. So, an enterprising and wealth-seeking man named Stephen Birch went about getting financial backing from the Guggenheims and Morgans and Havenmayers and built a railroad and the most technologically advanced city in Alaska at the time. Then he shipped in a bunch of foreigners seeking to immigrate to the States, worked them hard, paid them decently for a depression-era job, and built lots of fancy gadgets for getting high-grade copper to be shipped off to Tacoma for smelting (the park ranger told us that Tacoma is now a Superfund site because of the arsenic involving in the smelting process... interesting). I learned that the copper that's currently mined is pretty good at about 5% copper... while the Kennicott stuff was about 70%. I guess, when the mine was no longer economically viable, they shut it down in 1938 and abandoned it, leaving all their equipment (is that's what going to happen with all the other oil and mining stuff in Alaska? What about leave-no-trace?).

Nature's Work in Kennicott

Nature seems to be starting to do her work on the equipment though, taking out buildings and decaying wood and rusting old metal parts... Until, of course, the mine became a tourist attraction that's now owned by the National Park Service, as it's in the largest National Park in the country - Wrangell-St. Elias.

Dad and Mom dancing on Kennicott Glacier

It seems that Kennicott has kept the tradition of importing non-local residents to work... The National Park Service evidently has a policy of hiring locals (yay!), but also of not running out previously established businesses (makes sense). However, when patronizing these previously established businesses, it seems that the young people guiding tours and taking tourists ice climbing and working in the lodge were all up in Alaska for their first time. Sounds like a great experience, but makes me curious... are the locals just not interested in being summer tourist guides? Or is there no advertisement to Alaskans? No one seems to be offering a guiding job to any of my friends here... I went out kayaking a few summers ago in Whittier where the girl running the kayak rentals hadn't been in a kayak until she got the job. I guess I go to plenty of places where I don't know anything and seem to be able to find work... but it'd be nice if the Alaskans who know stuff about guiding and ice climbing and kayaking could also be offered those jobs...

Well, it sounds like there's a screech owl flying around the house, and I'm leaving in the morning to go fishing in Prince William Sound for a few days. Wish me luck with the fishing, as fresh salmon would make a tasty meal on the boat.

Denali, July 8-10, 2007

Mt. McKinley

Dustin in the Park

Katie and Dustin

Katie, Dustin, and Erika

Dr. Mom and Return to SWING

My Mom's a doctor! the week of June 16th, the family and I met up in Chicago to celebrate the passage of my Mom from her dent-in-the-couch thesis-writing phase, to her hooding as a velvet-capped wizard (I haven't seen a wand yet, but I keep looking...)! Dad and I flew into Chicago Tuesday morning, rented a car, picked up Uncle Kim, then headed over to Mom's hotel to get her and Chris, whereupon the five of us cozied into our rental car and began the drive up to Canada. Woo, road-trip! 8 hours later, we arrived at Poverty Point and the food-fest began. My great-grandmother's 99 years old now, and lives with her 68-year-old boyfriend Ram in Hamilton, Ontario. Ram tends the garden (he's planted grapes!), while Granny is queen of the kitchen.

Granny's Red Currant Pie

In anticipation of our arrival, Granny made us a red currant pie (for Mom and Kim), a chocolate pie (me and Chris), and a rhubarb/raspberry pie (Dad, connoisseur of all pies). Tasty...

Mom and Granny (making a chocolate pie)

Next year, in 2008, Granny will be 100, Mom will be 50, and I'll be 25... we're already planning the party. We're also on the look-out for any relatives that fall into the 75-year-old category, or the much-joked-of age 0 (not it!).

Chris and I also had a few interesting conversations with Ram this time, who I feel like I don't know particularly well... evidently he came to Canada 22 years ago, fleeing religious persecution in Iran (he's Baha'i) after being imprisoned for several years without being told why... he's not so excited about Islam... or about religion in general anymore. He told me that he hopes everyone will leave their religious "clubs" and learn to love each other. Hmmm... when I was in China where religion isn't so accepted, playing computer games seemed more prevalent than loving each other... but it sounds like a good idea...

Dad With the Chain Saw

Pulling Down Dead Branches

After stuffing ourselves full of Granny's tasty vittles, talking to Aunt Betty and Uncle Al (masters of quantum touch), and attempting to clean up Granny's pond through the use of brute strength and a chain-saw, we were off again to Chicago. There we met up with the the rest of the clan - Auntie and Jim, Grandpa and Arla, and "Aunt" Linda Curda. To continue our culinary adventures, we ate three solid meals a day, with desserts well-placed in between.. oooh...

Triumphant Ph.D.!

somewhere in there, we got ourselves out of the restaurant bench seats long enough to meet some of Mom's classmates, and see her get hooded as a Ph.D. in Adult Education, yay!

Don't Do It!

We also saw Cirque Shanghai, where small Chinese people bent themselves into uncomfortable looking positions to amaze the audience. Ooh! Oow! This inspired Chris and I to contemplate the pressures of modern China...

Back to Alaska, I had a few days off to play in the mountains, and succeeded in spending far too much time kayaking in Prince William Sound without sunscreen, giving myself bright red legs (they've faded into brown now) and a dizzying case of heatstroke. Oops.

Then Dustin and I began to teach dance again, woo-hoo! We taught for a week at the Alaska City Folk Arts Camp, where the admirable and much adored Mary Schallert let us teach latin dance (merengue, Argentine tango, salsa), swing dance, and a pretty awesome introduction to dance class where I played a lot of movement ( i.e. interpretative dance) games with the munchkins... hehe.

Yesterday also marked the re-inauguration of SWING (Society Working to Improve Negative Grooves), the dance group Dustin and I are running for the third summer in Anchorage. Kids 12-20 come hang out, get a mini-lesson, then dance with each other, eat whatever tasty treats they've brought in, and have fun! We had about 40 kids turn up last night to jump and groove, and I'm feeling pretty happy with my dancing life.

There's always the future though.. summer doesn't last forever, and at some point I'll have to decide what I'm doing in the fall (where?) when the summer camp season of swing dance fades into fallen leaves and frost... Sometime soon, I keep telling myself, I'll look for something else to do (social justice work? a *gasp* job?), but at the moment, Mom's projects from work (editing! data entry!), dancing, and the great outdoors are keeping me entertained.

Dumplings, Singapore, and Planes That Bring Me Home

I'm back in Alaska! With the moose and the bald eagles and the sunshine and the carhartt's. Feels good. Except that I keep waking up far too early in the morning, despite my best efforts to sleep in. Oh well. I'm sure it will pass. As always when I come home, I get the chance to reacquaint myself with old friends and past-times, while looking for a new niche in my hometown. I've started practicing my violin again, looking for ways to infuse swing dance into Alaska, and seeing my theater people. But this summer I now feel a need to do something activist, something social justice-ish. I'm sure Anchorage has something like that going on... now I just need to find it. Also, in the way that I like to immerse myself in activity, I applied for a job helping with HIV/AIDS Prevention in Alaska, which would be awesome to help out with. I'm also looking around for a way to continue to use my Mandarin, so we'll see how that goes.

Before I left Taiwan, I made friends with a guy who makes dumplings. He makes tasty vegetarian ones, and him and his assistant are always nice and talk to me when I walk by, so I made a point of buying some of the cabbage or leek filled buns on the way to or from class. One day I told my dumpling vendor that I wasn't sure if I would come back to Taiwan because I wanted to find some work in an area I like, and he offered to teach me how to make dumplings. Awesome. Although I am still not anywhere close to being able to make pretty veggie buns, I did get to hang out at the shop and roll out dough and watch his impeccable skill at closing the dumplings and he even told me how to make soy milk... If I ever go back to Taiwan, I wonder if he really would give me a part-time job helping make dumplings...

I went to Singapore! My Taiwanese visa expired 5 days before I wanted to leave Taiwan, and to avoid over-staying and generating bad relations with the Taiwanese government, I took the opportunity to visit Song Toh and his bride-to-be, Grace! My experience in Singapore was a lot less up-tight than I expected... or at least, they don't make lines on the MRT nearly as well as people in Taiwan and Hong Kong do. And don't have the crazy spikes and perms of fashionable hair in Taiwan and mainland China, or the tailored clothes and American retro-80's fashion look (at least, that's what it reminds me of... :). I also got to hang out with a tango-dancing Singaporean friend I made in Argentina, and even Jon Pflug, flashback from freshman year, came to dinner! It seems that the Singaporean government has done an excellent job in marketing, as there are many theme-park like exhibits, each with their own narrative. Song and I went to learn about the history of Singapore, where evidently the Malays, Chinese, EuroAsians, and Indians got together in peace and harmony and constructed a community... until the Japanese came and there was war... but I think the story brought them back to peace and harmony and hopeful visions for the future. I'm not sure how that's all working out, but the Indian food was very tasty. I also learned, although it may have been recently appealed, that oral sex is illegal in Singapore unless it leads to intercourse... I wonder how that rule's enforced. Although, when I told my parents this new-found knowledge, Mom informed me that oral sex is illegal in several states in the US... uh-oh.

After successfully supervising Song and Grace's new purchase of a refrigerator, sampling their wedding banquet (why the shark fin Song?), and discovering that my stomach sweats when it's really hot, I returned to Taiwan. I flew in Sunday afternoon, and Sunday evening I went out dancing with my recently-met friend Willie, and an awesome group of his friends. The salsa dancing was fun, but afterwards, the club put on reggaeton, and my new Latin American friends started singing along and the happy dancing began! Makes me look forward to the hippie outside dancing in Alaska that will have to happen at some point this summer...

The next day, Monday morning (ohh... too early...), began our final presentation, and last day of class. My class wrote a play about our experiences in Taiwan. Each of the five of us wrote a story about something that happened (or could have happened) to us here in Taiwan, writing in different characters to our story - I wrote about getting ignored ordering food because I'm too used to making lines, Roget talked about a cab driver shuttling him free of charge to school, Bao Zhu told of how people often think she's Taiwanese and ask her for directions (she's Vietnamese), and so on... Then we assigned parts, built a cute taxi and bus out of cardboard, and began blocking our play. We set it within the classroom, before class begins. Usually when we arrive early to class, we start talking, so we visualized our short plays as performing parts of our before class banter, with little sitting-around-the-table scenes between each play (to re-assure the audience of where we were talking). We performed for the other intensive class at our level, teachers, friends, and a video camera. Eventually I hope to get the tape of that performance, but I don't imagine I'll get it anytime soon. Afterwards, the revelry continued, and we went out to drink tea and then to dinner. After dinner our teacher said that one person would get to eat free (buy 10, get one free)... I suggested that we split the difference, but my old teacher mischievously said her heart was not nearly as good as mine, and we played a pin-ball like game to determine the lucky individual... and I got the highest score.. free pasta!

Tuesday I made Fish carry my box of books to the post office and back again (hey, postage is more expensive than I thought), went shopping with Roget and Fish to buy tasty Taiwanese treats for the whole family (dried squid, seaweed, pineapple cakes), and successfully crammed all of my things into an ever-fattening suitcase. Nothing to complain about, but people kept giving me stuff, including a whole calligraphy set, complete with a heavy ink-mixing-in rock, my name in Chinese on a stamp (chop?), and a globe clock where a space shuttle flies around and around to mark the time. And I didn't even break anything on my way back to the US.

Wednesday I head out of Taiwan, successfully arriving in Los Angeles before I left Taipei (time zones are weird), for dinner with the relatives and Chris Loken, and some quality sleep before going to Stanford to dance, discuss, and eat an enormous variety of pancakes with Chris, Ali, sparkly sexy deca folks, and anyone else around Stanford I remembered and could find in my short time. Then on the plane again, and here I am with the sun still out!

Sexual Health and Human Rights Theater

So much! As I'm heading back to the US in a little over two weeks, I've been scrambling around looking for a new path to life... and stumbling across lots of interesting projects in the process.

Katie in Commercial attire

Demure...

I was in a commercial! And a high-class commercial too... For diamonds... of all things consumerist and potentially harmful to the world... it was an experience. I got put into a nice dress and they gave me lots of make-up and a very large hair-do. Then I sat around all night (until morning) talking to an interesting multi-national crowd of folks at a table (think, elegant dinner party). Then, when the famous star lady walked down the stairs, we all had to turn and look at her. oooh... I haven't seen it on tv yet, but I'd like to, as I'm not sure how anything I did relates to selling diamonds. Let you know if I ever see it, but my not-watching-tv habit might leave me never knowing what the commercial is really like.

I'm getting more active with the Amnesty International group in town. For the teaching-human-rights-through-theater project that will happen at the end of this year, the AI folks are cooperating with a local theater group. So, we planned to go to one of their meetings and introduce ourselves and our topic, using theater. Everything was pre-discussed and agreed to by the theater group leader... To introduce the situation of foreign workers in Taiwan, we created an interactive drama, that may or may not have been a good idea... we arrived 15 min. late and asked the theater folks to help us move some benches up from downstairs, getting gradually more indignant about their inability to do what we wanted, compounded by the fact that we used more and more English, putting a confusing language barrier between us as well. Before we'd gotten very far into our interactive play, one of the theater folks started getting really angry and wanted to leave the rehearsal, so we called it quits early and sat in a circle to introduce ourselves and discuss the feelings that had been brought up in the exercise. After a very interesting discussion about race and attitude and language and interpretation, we talked about human rights in Taiwan and abroad, and ended the meeting with small groups each creating a scene to reflect our evening's experience. I think it may take us some time to regain the trust of the woman who we unfortunately pissed off, but that most of the group understood and appreciated what we were trying to do, and the director thinks that we allowed her group to finally step into the emotionally risky theater that they've talked about... Live and learn.

Yesterday's Amnesty meeting was about Women's Rights in Taiwan, where we talked about foreign brides and domestic violence... Seems that there are lots of brides coming in from Vietnam, Mainland China, the Phillipines, etc... looking for a wealthier life-style, but usually not finding it, and sometimes ending up as sex workers. In addition, an increasing number of Taiwanese men on extended business trips to Mainland China find another wife and create a new family there - but not necessarily continuing the relationship or financial support when they return back to Taiwan and their family here. Taiwan has also passed a unique, but not necessarily enforced law - if in a marriage one person works while the other stays home, the working one is required to pay a salary to the one who takes care of the home. Interesting...

In another societal division, I recently became aware of a "young folks these days" attitude... not unusual if my grandparent's say it, but much more so when the 28 year-olds here freely use the term. It seems that there are at least two factors involved in this behavior (or at least that I've noticed so far): Taiwan's culture is changing, and changing fast. 15 year olds nowadays are truly doing many different things that 15 year olds were ten years ago. More on that in a bit. Taiwanese people are also very age-segregated. School is the primary function of people under 25, and in school classmates are your own age. If anyone in school is of a different gra jde, they're referred to as brother or sister... which sounds good, except that in Chinese there's "older brother" "younger brother" "older sister" and "younger sister." So, the people who graduated the same year as Fu are her classmates, but the girl who was a year younger in school is Fu's "younger school sister," creating a linguistic division between your classmates (same) and those who are older or younger (different).

And the behavior of those "kids these days"... The stereotypes are mostly negative - have more sex, are more preoccupied with consumerism, less polite. And at least the first and last have combined to make a dangerous habit...I have heard from several people now that a fair number of junior high/high school/college girls go to XiMenDing (where all the cool, hip, kids hang out to buy cheap clothes, people watch, be watched, etc.) and trade sex for clothes, money, or fashionable items. It seems the buyers are older men, who Fu says are some of the ones who came to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-Shek in 1949 - so, old. Also, I've heard from quite a few sources that this practice is from Japan. Hmm... the more I hear about Japanese culture the more complex I find it, and the more different it seems from my own... I decided to ask Satoshi if he knew anything about this and he concurred - evidently in Japan in about the last 10 years it's become increasingly common for young girls to leave home, sleep (or provide other sexual services) with older, rich, men, and get paid in brand-name items. I imagine this is compounded by an idea held in Japan that once women are mothers, it's no longer polite to sleep with them, so fathers look to other sources to satisfy their sexual desires.

In addition - I went to the HIV/AIDS association I mentioned last email, and the leader, Sister Teresa, sent a bunch of emails which have snow-balled. I met a HIV/AIDS researcher last week who gave me a research paper he hasn't quite finished editing, about college freshmen' attitudes towards HIV/AIDS. It seems kids are knowledgeable, but that knowledge doesn't translate in practice - the average age of first sexual experience is relatively late (17), but Fish tells me that Taiwan has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Asia. Oops. However, the professor, and his student's, research conclusion is a need for HIV/AIDS education. Here's where I may fit in. The professor says that if I'm willing, he'll support me to write a grant to design and implement an HIV/AIDS prevention program in colleges here. I'm excited! Now I just have to write a grant and see what the Taiwanese Ministry of Education thinks...

And in dancing - swing may be coming to Taipei! Tonight was the second night of a hopefully weekly swing dance! Complete with live band, mini-lesson, and no cover charge, at least a handful of Taiwanese people now know what swing dance is, and even seem interesting in learning it! The newbies keep asking me where I teach swing, but uh, I don't teach swing here... Oh, the opportunities. I feel like I'm just starting to feel out where I might fit in, while I'm preparing to head back stateside in a couple weeks. Monday a bunch of friends and I went out to dinner to celebrate Vicky's coming birthday, and my imminent departure. After we had stuffed ourselves with dumplings and soup and tofu and everything else tasty, all of my classmates said a toast for me.. I don't know if anyone has ever toasted me before, especially not with cups of green tea... It reminded me that there are a lot of connections I've made here, that I hope will continue and develop, even when I'm back to mountains and clean air in June.

Air Raid Drills and Indigenous Rights

Yesterday, from 2 - 2:30pm, there was a Taiwan Air Raid Drill. Like a fire drill, but different. No one was allowed outside, the lights were all turned off, and the air raid sirens wailed. Our teacher says there's a drill every year, and for her, it didn't seem strange. For Fu, she said the drill was her favorite part of school every year when she was little, she would get to sit under her desk with her friends with the lights off and talk for half an hour, yay, no school! But for all us in-Chinese-class foreigners, the idea of police swarming on forbidden streets was tantalizing, but we were firmly instructed to remain in our classroom instead of going to look at the street below where I can only pretend to know what was happening.. the teacher said that the police would probably be out, but I imagine they can't cover all the streets in Taiwan.

Evidently we were practicing hiding from potential Chinese bombs and planes and other war-related material. Interesting... a yearly reminder that threatening China is just across the strait, prompting Taiwan's urges towards independence to be made nervously by most who just want the status quo (not really a country? no problem... just let there be peace...) And anyway, if the Chinese did fly over with bombs, I think I might like to find a concrete basement somewhere, not just sit in my classroom on the 9th floor with the lights off...

In other news, Fish tells me that Taiwanese is finally being taught in schools in Taiwan... Taiwanese people had to speak Japanese under Japanese rule (folks my grandparents age still speak Japanese here), then only Mandarin in schools when Chiang Kai-Shek and his group came over from the mainland, so the majority spoken language of Taiwanese should probably get some recognition... however...

I went to an Amnesty International meeting (with 3 Catholic priests! two from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and one from Belgium...) last night on Indigenous Rights in Taiwan. AI was already in Taipei when I got here, but a friend of mine from school here started an English speaking section a few months ago. An indigenous man came to speak to the group about rights here, and it all sounds very confusing, but very interesting. There are lots of indigenous groups in Taiwan... well, no one's really sure how long ago they got here, or where they're from... some folks say they're from Indonesia, and some say they're from somewhere around the Philippines... but they were here at least when a wave of folks from the mainland came over about 400-500 years ago. Only Chinese men came over, but yet babies were produced, so most old family Taiwanese people are mixed Chinese and indigenous Taiwanese.

According to tonight's speaker, the indigenous people here are/were very diverse, with lots of different languages and areas. Most of them used to live near the coasts, where the flat land is, but gradually moved higher up into the mountains as the Chinese moved here (Taiwan has some small flat coastal areas, but most of it is mountains, running lengthwise all down the middle of the island). When the Japanese came, the people began to get classified, lumping different groups together, and of course, had to learn Japanese. Then they learned Mandarin (traditional characters) with the arrival of Chiang Kai-Shek, and have been removed from more of their land... the younger generations are losing interest in the culture and many move to the cities for work.. including a disproportionate number in child/adolescent prostitution... sometimes the mountains are left with grandparents and babies while the working ages are in the cities (sounds like rural China...).

For tonight's guest, the most important issue was land. Some of the national parks are placed on what used to be indigenous land. Some of the mountain areas are now being sold off to ethnic Chinese folks. Seems like the general stereotype here of ethnic minorities is of happy, singing, dancing, simple people.. nice, but not exactly true. And I'm just beginning to learn...

This bit of historical inequity and the forces working to bring about some form of equality couldn't have come at a perfect time for me. Coming back to Taipei from my re-acquaintance with American hippie culture in Tainan, I started looking on the internet for something human rights-ish to help out with here, partly as a retreat from the increasingly over-bearing culture of consumerism I see here in Taipei. At the AI meeting last night I said that I used to work as an HIV/AIDS Prevention Educator, and another woman at the meeting told me she currently works with an HIV/AIDS organization in Taiwan... and even with my limited Chinese, I can help out, woo-hoo! Can't wait to start.

Another woman at the meeting also is working on a theater project to teach human rights in schools in Taipei... and, because human rights isn't an acceptable subject in schools, they want to run the classes in English (teaching English is encouraged...). There's a workshop early in May and I'm excited to get involved... Amazing what's out there if you fall into the right meeting at the right time...

Southern Camping

I recently returned from the restful south of the island, where my Taipei-grown friends think the hicks and country-bound people live... I went to TaiNan (台南) to visit a friend I met during my one-semester attempt at online graduate school. James (my old classmate), and his wife, Christine, live a fantastic life of English teaching, art, and hippy American-ism that gave me a weekend slice of cultural understanding. I took the train down to warmer climes, then spent the morning with Fish's brother who's studying for his Ph.D. in something. He showed me around the historical ruins and entertained my many questions with an enviable patience. However, after I pointed at the God-of-Tests turtle-like pedestal, I was informed that pointing at gods isn't polite... I imagine I have now most likely doomed myself to a horrible testing future. Sad.

Evidently a Chinese/Japanese guy named Koxinga came to Tainan at some point and fought off the Dutch and their guns and cannons... I'm not sure what the whole story was, or if the outcome is considered a good thing, but I did read the Koxinga's dad was a pirate... arrr! And I saw the old Dutch fort! Which used to be along the water's edge, and is now a good five minute drive away from the ocean... landfill? The ocean was also filled with logs at the time I visited... old pirate raft remnants?

After the beach and tasty snacking, James and Christine picked me up, and their scarves, lack of cell phones, and easy-going nature warmed my heart immediately. We went to the market for dinner, buying veggies and fruit and snacks. Last Thursday was "Tomb Sweeping Day" when everyone is supposed to go to their ancestor's tomb and clean. In honor of the occasion, there were special spring rolls made to be brought along (picnic at the tombs?), and we snagged some at the market... not bad. In TaiNan, the cleaning was evident. Fresh flowers were neatly placed, paper money burned in offering, and everything green around the tombs incinerated to an appropriate black. In Taipei, most of the people I've asked so far said they haven't gone to their ancestors' tombs... some relative or another is taking care of it. Hmmm... I wonder if the city-kids are going to remember how to sweep tombs when they grow up?

And, my TaiNan friends and I went camping! However, in respect to Taiwanese style, we went car camping. According to James and Christine some Taiwanese people have brought camping to a fine new art - with portable TV's to sing karaoke all night long, BBQ grills, and fold-out cots. We landed somewhere in the middle - lawn chairs were included, as well as an enormous umbrella in case it rained, and tasty food (veggies and garlic, seasoned and wrapped in tin foil and cooked over the coals...)... but we also had tents and sleeping bags and the big outdoor bathroom. Still, the rocks near the river reminded me of home, and the wisdom James, Christine, and their friend Dennis (who has biked all over the world), shared was captivating in the fire's flickering light.

Back to TaiNan the next day, we passed through mango town, and taro town, each with a large statue of their famous edible. In taro town, we stopped to sample taro pastries, and taro ice cream, but skipped out on the Big Block 'O Taro. I even brought a box of taro treats home to my family in Taipei, whose contents subsequently disappeared, leading me to assume they enjoyed them.

Feeling rich of freely given lodgings, food, and wisdom in TaiNan, I took the High Speed Rail back to Taipei, whee! 300 km/hr with toilets like an airplane. I tried to walk to the twice-as-expensive "business" car (number 6), but was stopped by a lady and a police officer (who was surprised I spoke Mandarin)... I guess I should have faked foreign ignorance, but I didn't think fast enough, and just apologized and walked the other way... next time.

My 3 hours of class a day keep getting longer and longer, which I'm sure could give me lots of opportunities to learn classroom management/instructing skills from my new teacher if I could pay attention better, but in the mean time, I keep finding myself doing the homework in class instead of listening to grammatical explanations... I will hopefully work on understanding why this method isn't working for me, in an in-class-research, don't-fall-asleep-when-there's

-only-five-students, sort of way.

Speaking of which, I should perhaps write a Chinese advertisement to sell a fictitious island. Let me know if you're interested, and I may just give you a sales pitch...

Beach!

Yesterday, some friends and I went to the beach!

Dancing in the Sand

Tango in the Water

Roget and Satoshi

Trying to get Satoshi into the hole he dug

Feet!

Dance Pictures!

Some of the pics from a dance photo shoot!

Charleston

Salsa

Swing

Katie in Swing costume

Chicago

History, Hiking, and Gods

I'm back in class and am starting on the second book, yay! It's green! I have a new teacher too, who's 3 months pregnant and said in class once that all her body's resources have left her brain for the baby, and I can see where sometimes that might be true... I also got two new classmates - a girl from Vietnam and a guy from Spain! The Spanish guy, Roget is fun to hang out with, and we get to mix in Spanish words with our Mandarin if we come across a topic beyond our limited vocabulary. :) I also got to keep my two half-Japanese classmates, Satoshi and Abe, who seem to have taken up the habit of late-night gaming... sounds like fun, but not so good for the homework.

I've also gotten a new "job"! There's a company called LiveABC that publishes and distributes English learning materials to somewhere (I think several countries, but I don't really know), like magazines, books, and CD-ROM's... and I get to be in the video part of the CD-ROM's, yay! So far I've gotten to make a mess in someone else's kitchen, watch a Taiwanese baker make a cake (totally, start to finish, very cool!), and cry at my computer screen because I have to write a report but my hand is in a cast. Tomorrow I get to be a Chilean business assistant with the hots for an American business assistant. And my ever-generous wardrobe assistant, Vicky, continues to garner the privilege of having her clothes displayed all over the place. For tomorrow's filming, I've borrowed a suit... her little black shorts were featured in my swing performance, and her extra shiny shirt was seen at a tango milonga. Yay Vicky!

Back in dance land, some of the foreign dancers and I went to a photo shoot to take some promotional pictures. Brook, and Magda and Olga - both Polish-Canadian, were all there, all of whom I have a great deal of respect for. We got to wear our coolest dancey costumes and pose while the camera-man told us we all looked great... and then we went outside to the green area in the middle of the road to take more pictures, where it seemed evident that the people in the cars thought we looked great too... mmm... more clothes for the outside pictures next time, I'd say.

There's hiking in Taipei! Taipei has fuzzy green mountains all around it that have tempted me since I got here, and this last Saturday I finally go to explore! Fish and I wandered up a trail in NeiHu, a district of Taipei that I read has the best hiking in Taipei, and we did indeed discover the tops of (short) fuzzy mountains, as well as lots of people fishing next to the "do not fish" signs, and a little old monk in front of a temple. It also seems that Taiwanese people like stairs almost as much as Chinese people do... Fish is learning Spanish, so he got to practice counting, and after a few hundred stairs, I think he's starting to get the hang of it. Next time I also think I should take a bag with me and pick up some of the trash... Fish picked up an extra tea bottle at the top, and we felt pretty cool, until we saw all the other bottles floating in the river on the way down.

I saw on the MRT map that there's hiking trails near where Fu lives, and I'm excited to try those out... but first I may have to convince Fu to go with me... I haven't met many Taiwanese girls yet who think the idea of physical exercise sounds like fun. I have discovered though, that hiking clothes here are ridiculously expensive here. I have my favorite black REI bought shirt that I wear a lot, so I thought I'd go looking for another one (maybe red)... and even the stuff made in Taiwan is evidently subject to an import tax because of it's American branding, making it more expensive here than at home in the States... interesting. Guess I'll have to buy real Taiwanese clothes instead.

Last weekend was lantern festival! Fish tells me when he was little his family would make paper lanterns and stick candles inside, and that was great fun, but now most people buy their kids electric lanterns... safer, but without the same excitement. I missed the big send-lanterns-into-the-sky-en-mass party because I was performing dance somewhere, but at Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall there were lantern sculptures... no, maybe not sculptures... I don't know. People from different companies or schools each made a scene with metal framing and paper over it, and of course, light inside. There were lots of pigs to celebrate the pig year, as well as random cartoon characters and toys and famous buildings and such. Reminded me a lot of ice carving in Anchorage... except, not as cold. Ah, and I've been registered! Because this is the year of the pig, and I was born in the year of the pig, I'm suppose to register myself at a temple so that I can be... protected... or something. Keep the bad spirits away. What that required though, was to go to the temple, give them 500NT (what do they do with it??), tell them my name, address, and phone number, and then they registered me and gave me noodles. I haven't eaten the noodles yet, but I imagine they're not worth 500NT. I also asked some of my friends what they think of when they pray at the temple, and evidently you always have to tell whichever god you're praying to your name and address... interesting. Maybe Taiwanese gods are not as good at voice recognition as a Christian god..

I also saw a cool play last weekend, a historical fiction following a woman born just after the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, through when Chiang Kai-Shek and his crowd came from mainland China, to sometime around the present with the influence of American culture. A lot of the play was in Taiwanese, meaning it's catered for an audience of the came-to-Taiwan-from-China-around-500-years-ago crowd, rather than the came-to-Taiwan-from-China-with-Chiang Kai-Shek crowd. I got some Taiwanese-to-Mandarin translation whispered to me during the show, so I understood the general idea (but not what people were laughing about usually). I think I understand a little better now why some people still feel so bitter about mainland China and Chiang Kai-Shek... at least, the story is much more visual now, with fake dead bodies (from Chiang Kai-Shek) and arranged marriages (from the Japanese era) and mixed-culture kids (Taiwanese-American). Now I just need to see the made-for-Chiang-Kai-Shek's-followers play.

Brook and Katie Valentine's Day Performance

Videos!

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Chicago Hat and Cane, Soft-Shoe, Charleston




Lindy Hop

The Northern Half

Spring is Coming

Let the traveling begin:

On the second day of the New Year, everyone is supposed to go home to visit their Mother's family. I went with Fu to her mother's mother's house in YiLan where all the relatives were gathered, with munchkins riding little plastic tricycles underfoot. Gambling during family gatherings seems to be pretty popular here, and the kids and me and Fu played a completely random chance dice game for peanuts. I lost all my peanuts several times over, but luckily Fu was nice enough to lend me some of hers. We got back to Taipei and Fu's house late, where Fu's Mom was more than gracious, and is trying to get me fat on tasty Taiwanese snacks.

Over-looking the Graveyard

The third day of the New Year, Fish came to pick me up and we started our week-long drive around the north of Taiwan. We drove down the west coast, stopping first at the university he graduated from. Wandering along the hills of the perimeter, I looked down into a valley and discovered a graveyard... then that the graveyard extended up to where we were standing... whereupon Fish told me that his college was built on an old prisoner extermination ground, and some of the college buildings were now unstable because their foundations are laid on unmarked graves. Whoa. I guess during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, a lot of prisoners were killed.. Fu also told me later that a lot of universities in Taiwan are built on such sites - because a school needs a lot of space, and the areas around these old "prisons" were left clear of houses because of ghost stories. Goodness. Makes me curious if it was something that only happened during the Japanese occupation, or if these grounds continued to be used under the rule of Chiang Kai-Shek (I hear he killed lots of Taiwanese intellectuals opposed to his party, and shipped some of them off to Greenland...) and if so, when the "prisons" got converted to schools. I guess it gives a student reason to believe that he really is in jail...

The West Coast - Towards Wind-Mills

Hello Bird!

After a visit to the muddy coast, full of people wading ankle deep in the mud (Fish says they were looking for things to sell...), we went to a night market to eat our fill. In Taiwan, there are tons of night markets - I live right next to one of them, which is great when I get hungry late.... mostly it just means that it's a collection of shops and food vendors that sell things cheaply in a centralized location. I like them! Unfortunately, it seems that most of the vendors/restaurants here are very specialized, so it's often difficult to find vegetarian food on the street. I'm used to being able to go into any restaurant and assume that there will be at least one vegetarian option - but here, I often wander into three or four stores, asking if they have anything vegetarian and getting a firm "no." Still not used to it... but I'm continuing to find places and things that are interesting and meat-less, yay!

Sun Moon Lake

Amazing Sun Moon Lake Rock-Climbing Frog

From TaiZhong (台中), starting up into the mountains, we stopped by Sun Moon Lake (日月潭), the wondrous famous lake... which was indeed very pretty. Lots of mountains surrounding a really big lake. Supposedly from above it looks like the sun and the moon together... but on the aerial view map, it still didn't really look like a sun and a moon... ah well, perhaps the ancient namers were of a more romantic sort than I. We paddled around on a boat and wandered around the perimeter, and I didn't even fall in, yay!

Formosan Aboriginal Cultural Village - the Tlingit and Haida Aborigines?

Close to Sun Moon Lake lies the Formosan Aboriginal Cultural Village - where there are roller-coasters (wheee!), reconstructed houses of the major Taiwanese aboriginal groups (sparse, but cool), and aboriginal music, dance, and other performances (ooh, pretty!). An interesting combination of commercialism and cultural preservation, but I'm glad I went, just to know that such a place exists..

Towards the Green Green (Yellow?) Grasslands

On to the upper mountain reaches and the Green Green Grasslands, where crowds of Taiwanese people gather to take pictures of sheep. baaaaa! The sheep get to live in the beautiful mountains, which made me temporarily envious of the woolly ones, until I realized that to earn their place in the cool fresh lands, they have to endure the handling and photographing of a gazillion Taiwanese tourists... There were signs warning not to chase or ride the sheep, but I'm not sure how strictly they were enforced. I think I'll try not to be born a sheep in the Green Green Grasslands next life... even if sheep milk popsicles are rather tasty.

Mountains!

Through the mountains in the center of Taiwan! Taiwan is a big oblong shape - with it being long N-S, and skinny E-W. But all through the center (running N-S), there are mountains! And they're massive and covered in green, inter-mingled with white mists swirling to cover and reveal the sun shining down in dappled rays... We drove up, up, and up and wandered around the cold summit, following close behind the ant-like tourists on pilgrimage past the "do not enter" signs to find the perfect picture location.

Taroko Gorge

Then down and down, through tunnel after tunnel, to the bottom of the mountains and a deep gorge with steep rock walls, clumps of green still clinging to the vertical gray. Ahhhh...

ShihTiPing's Volcanic Rock Coast

Passing through nature's mountains, we arrived in Hualien where my friends Fu and Jia Yi met us. We spent a late night at the night market losing money on fair games, eating tasty food, and talking, until I finally crashed and left the others to their conversation. The next day we drove south down the dramatic east coast to see a bat cave (whoa, bats!), and take silly pictures of Fu with the brilliant blue ocean and rocky shore in the background at ShihTiPing (石梯坪).

Fu!

I've learned that events here can be much more about the taking of pictures than about the event itself... Brook theorizes that it's a way to show off to people where you've been, while reminding yourself that you went somewhere beautiful... I'm not sure yet, but my wandering self likes looking at the pictures in retrospect much more than stopping to compose a shot. I'm grateful there are so many people around me with amazing digital cameras to help relieve me of the picture-taking responsibilities!

Alaska's That Way...

Then up the east coast in the middle of the mountain-side, with a drop to the sea on the right... amazing. And I got back to Taipei just in time to go to rehearsal... I performed a 4 person Irish tap last Wednesday with Brook, another foreign salsa teacher Maggie, and Taiwan's master of tap Yu Qing (who's about my age and amazing, amazing, amazing). I've been rehearsing at least once a day since then, as I perform again on Sunday night, and we're putting together an hour and a half show for next Thursday in TaiZhong(台中)... it looks like I'll be dancing Disco, Irish tap, Chicago Hat and Cane, Charleston, Lindy Hop, Salsa, and doing a short comedy piece. Awesome. I'm learning a whole lot with all this dancing, and meeting some really excellent people in the process.