Archive for October, 2006

Taimali – The Millenium Sun-rise Point

October 27, 2006 at 9:24 am · Filed under Taiwan, Travel

The 5-day weekend was well spent with my 3-day vist to Taimali/Taidong. Thanks to Wayne who drove me all the way down south to Taipei to his guest house in Taimali. Taimali’s claim to fame is that its the eastern-most point and shot to fame during the millenium’s first sunrise. If you see a flat map, it isnt obvious that Tai-mali is the eastern most point but curve of the globe does all the magic in putting Tai-mali close to the sunrise.

Not marketed well for the foreigners, Taimali is a place not to be missed if you know some local. It is the home for several tribes, the prominent being Paiwan and ***. Taimali is less than 10 km from Taidong city and has its own railway station. The guest house I stayed was located in the settlement area of Paiwan tribes and it was a feast for the eyes with tradition and modernity blending smoothly.

Taimali guest House Chief House Traditional Wall Painting

1. Guest House 2. Tribal Chief’s house 3. Traditional Paiwan painting
You can drive down Dawu Mountain Nature Education Center which showcases the local flora, fauna and the tribal culture. You can relax in the hot springs attached to the education centre.

The shore-line in Taidong/Taimali is clean, less crowded and beatiful. On a clear day, one can see Green Island across a patch of Pacific ocean. I didnt get a chance to visit Green Island.

Approach: Taimali is a station before TaiDong. The best way to travel is driving down south.

To Dawu Mountain: By Car – On the National Route 9, turn right at 414k towards Jinlun Hot Springs and drive 2.5 k in that direction to arrive at this place

Bus: From TaiTung City: Ding-Dong Bus (Mountain or Liqiu line) to Jinlun Hot springs stop.

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The West , The Chinese and the Indians

October 25, 2006 at 12:42 pm · Filed under India, Random Thoughts, Taiwan

This is continuation of my earlier blog on comments on article by Gentle Rain (GR).

I kind of agree with him when he says about the way the westerns and the easterns think (he has extended the courtesy of identifying the indians uniquely).

The ease with which we Indians have adopted to the western thinking is several times rightly attributed to English colonialism (Related Who is an Indian ) , I think it is more deeper than that. I am sure that the Chinese wouldnt transition to western thought or English, as easily as we did. My premise is language is culture and culture is language – existing in symbiosis.
Indian thought and languages have evovled over milleniums and is based on very logial constructs as much as abstractions. Sanskrit, the mother of almost 80% of Indian languages is considered the most(sic) perfect language. As logical as it gets, a good deal of abstraction and complex patterns are embedded in the works written over centuries.

English (proxy for western thought) joined this league as late as 15th century while rennaisance happened. Science and mathematics was suddenly revived after centuries of interlude between Pythagoras and Galileo. The language and hence the culture (or is it vice-versa) evolved both in logic and abstraction because of the increasing need to express things in a written format.

Indians follow the same thought pattern and it is easy to absorb the western culture (Do we need to do it? is a seperate question) and hence English (call centres, anyone?)

Its not gonna be a easy ride for the Chinese. I feel the Chinese (like their language) think very abtractly and less in logical patterns. Their structuring of though (and language) cannot be directly correlated to English. The fundamental fabric of the thought and culture is different, and it is going to be a challenge to adopt English language and western thought patterns.

Another angle of Chinese thought is that it is a Confusian society – top down. There is little room of individuality and relationships are very complex. It is unthinkable for the Chinese to challenge authority (on an average).

<Sorry for the abdrupt end>

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Learning Chinese !

October 25, 2006 at 11:20 am · Filed under India, Taiwan

I was inspired by what ‘GentleRain’ (GR) wrote on his blog of how frustrating it is for a westerner to learn Chinese. It is not just the westerner, it is frustrating to us Indians as well. I grew up realising English is so imperfect a language and Chinese vexes me more. For couple of days of starting to learn Mandarin (I stopped midway though), I was harping on how Indian languages are so perfect and logical till it dawned to me learning language is not like learning mathematics. Learning language is learning a culture; I hadnt enrolled into a Mandarin course but ‘Chinese Culture course’ .

While I would anyday vote for more ‘logical’ (sic) organisation of the Chinese textbooks by figure of speech etc., I would still believe it would just teach you the language and not the essence. There may be many reasons for people to learn Chinese, the most important being to work in ‘emerging economies’ (of the Chinese world). In that case, it is important to learn Chinese in the unstructured manner – cumbersome yet appropriate. Else, while reading / listening chinese, one would end up understanding the syntax and not the semantics.

I hate memorising, thats why I chose the ’science’ line. That was my undoing when I tried to learn the language logically, it wont work! I hate to say, memorisation is a must for languages and there is a limit to logically teach a language – then it would cease to be a language it would be linguistic science (or something).

Referring to GR, I disagree on the abstractions thing. Western thought may be logical but I dont think it is any more abstract than the Chinese. Chinese are really abstract when you see how their writing and their cultures, but where they fail is representation of abstraction using language. It would be easier for one to learn any Indian language for a couple of years and read the books and understand the abstraction. This wont hold it for the Chinese language. It is not for nothing it is said ‘It takes a lifetime and a little more to learn Chinese well’ . I give very poor marks in their language’s ability to capture abstraction as understood by western and Indian languages. Our written languages are more complete and encompassing.

Thats why understanding chinese (both the people and the language) is so difficult! With a qualified immodesty, I would say in terms of the evolution in the ability of a written language to capture the complex thoughts and culture, Indian languages are centuries ahead. Not to mention English!

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The Moon Festival and the 5-day weekend

October 18, 2006 at 9:46 pm · Filed under Taiwan

Three major festivals would prominently feature on Chinese calendar – New Year, Dragon Boat and Moon festival. I love the third one the most because of the humungous amount of sweets that are distributed. Having missed those burfis and laddoos, I worked overtime making up for the loss by eating those delicious moon cakes. Moon festival is the 15th day of the 8th lunar month and as a tradition moon cakes are devoured while the full moon shines in the sky.

Traditional mooncakes have full yolk in the centre but these days they come in all forms and all sizes. It is a good time to get in touch with business associates (Diwali anyone?)

Some different types of mooncakes

         

I will save you the slack and you can see what ever you want to know about the tradition of moon festival at this link Wiki – Moon festival .

There is a new barbeque tradition that is emerging in Taiwan. Friends and families arrange for barbeque evenings during the full moon and it makes an interesting evolution to the tradition.

This year (2006) , the moon festival holiday falling on a friday close to the 10/10 Taiwanese holiday made it a great weekend. A good 5-day off (make me a worried man on how would i spend those 5 days, forunately lady luck smiled on me). Not to lessen the  fun, the ‘redshirts’ (wrongly compared to the ‘blackshirts’) staged a ’siege’ on the President Chen Shui-bien. I am no political commentator and I will abstain from it.

Not to be missed in Taipei on 10/10 is those wonderful fireworks. I have never seen such ingenous fireworks with smilees, blooming flower and a wide range of colorful fireworks in the 1-hr show. To reach the place, go to Taipei Main Station and you will see a crowd of people waiting to board the buses to the riverside site of the fireworks. Just follow the crowd.

Al-in-all it was a great long weekend.

Next>>Taimali

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World Map and you!

October 9, 2006 at 8:14 am · Filed under Random Thoughts

There are 192 country-members of the UN, Vatican is not a member, and outside supporter of the Taiwan cause I would add it to my list of countries. So there are 194 countries in THE world map.

I think each country has its own world-map, based on stereotypic biases – not officially I mean, mentally. Yeah, officially it is surely different – Israel doesnt exist in the maps of many Middle Easterners, Indian boundaries are different on either side of the boundary etc. I am not interested in that debate – its political. I am talking about ‘mental maps’ of people. Some countries dont exist at all, some exist in clusters, some have different names …

Let me explain the ‘Indian’ world map.

1. America and UK – ‘Normal foreign countries’ dream place to be

2. Europe – these days dimly appearing on the map of many people – earlier was the ‘country’ of world wars – now it is potential for ‘onsite’ opportunities thanks to the software boom

3. Middle East – Mallu paradise and ‘Bhai-logon’ ka holiday destination, oil ‘factory’

4. East of India beyond Bangladesh – ‘Chinkies’ (sic) ! some intelligent ones have started distinguishing between Japanese, Koreans (thanks to LG), China (thanks to the competition to become world most populous country). Also seen as the place for electronic goods.

5. Africa – ‘country’ of black people with some Indians at the south of it (South Africa).

6. South America practically doesnt exist because Brazil is African (yes, people really think that) country with Carnival and good football team, Argentina is European team with Maradona

7. Russia – people are still stuck with former USSR map, can we keep on buying Atlas every year? – communist (???) friend of India. Publisher of Misha comics.

8. Australia – European country till one of their relatives boards a plane flying east, someone tells them that it somewhere in the south east.

Hello… Taiwan ko bhool gaye kya? ‘Isnt it china?’

Thailand? ‘Which one?’ Wahi Bangkok wala ‘Oh, Accha bangkok thailand main hain kya – suna hain waha….’
Wait, Wait.. we just ran out of countries…how much did we county 15-20 , what about Lituvania, Georgia, Ukraine ….

This is one of the areas we are better off than the Americans…. they have still smaller maps.

1. China – cheap goods

2. India – call centres

3. Japanese – the ones we nuked

4. Israel – legitimate master of the middle east and surrounded by enemies (also of the US)

5. Middle East – Oil producing ‘Arabs’

6. Europe – where our military was active during the world wars

7. East Asia – where our miliary was active in 70s-80s

8. US – centre of the earth (or was it Universe) , country of Nobel Laureates and most importantly creator of the most nutritious meal – SuperSize McMeal

Check this Map drawn by Bush

Who told you there are 194 countries????

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Bharath & Taiwan

October 7, 2006 at 9:02 pm · Filed under India, Taiwan

This blog is dedicated to Bharath, my good friend, whose ignorance of Taiwan comes smattering on my face with his naive (and innocent) scraps on orkut. Bharath is not only one there are several in my beloved Bharath (India) who are so ignorant and the following points are based on my answers to my beloved ones’ doubts about this country where I am – Taiwan. The Bharath in the title of this blog refers to India and not my friend.

* Taiwan has nothing to do with Thailand – they are 2 different countries

* Sorry, nothing happened to me (or Taiwan) when the coup happened in Bangkok. Bangkok is in Thailand and not in Taiwan

* Taiwan is located in the triangle joining Shanghai, Tokyo and HK and is classified as N.Asia

* Taiwan (Republic of China) is according to India (like many other countries) officially ‘renegade state of China’. But if you get below the skin, there are informal diplomatic ties

* Taiwan is a safe (actually safest in this region) and peace loving country – no for god’s sake there is no bombing happening here

* Taiwan is one of the developed countries in the world – yes there are roads, and even internet – I am blogging from one of the remote corners of Taiwan

 
* All ‘chinkies’ (sic) are not one – there are Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Malays, Filipinos etc etc.. Taiwanese is another emerging group, they are trying to clearly differentiate from the (mainland) Chinese. They are ethnically Chinese. So, Mr.Moon becoming the UN Secretary General is rejoiced by Koreans and Taiwanese are as indifferent to this as we Indians – no ‘chinky connection’ , sorry

* Taiwanese dont each rats and roaches. The only pervert indulgence is the snake alley in Taipei. Next time you find some strange food cans with these pics dont send it to me without reading that the food is from Thailand

* Taiwan is not a Islamic country – its a true secular country. The Christians and muslim missionaries alike are frustrated in Taiwan because they have not been succesful in inducing the Taiwanese to monotheism inspite of conversion.

* Taiwan is rich of natural resources – 60% forest cover.

* Sorry to disappoint you again – Taipei 101 is not an inch shorter than Malaysian twin-towers but infact THE TALLEST tower in the world.

The next time you want to ask something about Taiwan, please visit my blog before you do so.

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