Visitors from outta town

It's been a couple of weeks since my parents have been here. I haven't written about it 'cause we showed them most of the things that I've already posted here. But we did do one major thing Marie and I've never done before. We went to Dajia Park to see the Dragon Boat races.
















The park is marked by this unusual bridge, called the Dajia (Dah-jah) bridge. It's pretty famous because it's such an unusual structure.















This's everybody headed into the park. Someone at work said that the Dragon Boat races mark the beginning of summer and it's really hot there and then. But we didn't think it was that bad. It was warm, maybe even hot, but it wasn't miserable.


















The boats start under the unusual bridge and they run in heats of four for about 500 meters, I think. This's one of the boats returning from a run. They have Dragon Boat races in Seattle, but it was pretty neat to see it done by people for whom it's a very long tradition.

The story goes something like: there was a renowned general who advised the emperor of China. But the emperor would 't listen to his advice, so in his shame or frustration the general threw himself into the river and drowned. The people, in an attempt to prevent his body from being eaten, made these special triangles of sticky rice wrapped in seaweed and threw them in the river for the fish to eat instead. Which's why these things are so popular during this holiday. No one seems to know why they race boats.

My personal theory is everyone gathered at the river as part of this holiday-memorial and at some point, unsurprisingly, some guy turned to another guy and uttered the immortal words, "race ya."


















And there was also a midway of sorts with lots of food, like a fudge fountain for your marshmallows or squid on a stick (mom liked that, not) and things you could buy. And there were rides for smaller types.

And now, the weather: currently, at 10:30 a.m., it's 91 and the humidity is 60 percent, so it feels like 102. Which is to say, not what I'm used to June feeling like.

I think the best way to visualize it is: with the A/C on, I can take a cold shower, put on a shirt I keep in the freezer, and the shirt will be sticking to me before I get outside. By the time I get to the subway three blocks away, my shirt will probably be sticking to me more than not, certainly by the time I walk another three blocks outta the subway to school. Not to gross anyone out. It's just hot and sticky here.

My current trick is to wear one t-shirt to work and change into something else when I get there. I thought the shirt-in-the-freezer was a good idea, but cotton just won't stay cold more than a few seconds. I need a shirt made outta those freezer packs. Mmmmm, cold.

But I think we've been pretty lucky. It's been a mild summer, I suspect. Locals have said it's usually really hot by the Dragon Boat races. And I've noticed that if I want my kids to consistently say it's hot, I have to write 35 C on the board. That's about 95 degrees. 30 C (85) is hot to some but only warm to many. And the Dragon Boat Festival was three weeks ago.

So by now we should be little puddles of Seattlites, as we're unfamiliar with real heat or humidity, but we're doing okay. We don't even have the air running all the time. It's still warm inside, but we can open windows and get a bit of a breeze, which really helps with the humidity. Oh, and there's air conditioning at school, so that's okay.

But I think there's a drought or something like it. I heard from someone a month ago that the reserves are down to 17 percent or so of what they usually are this time of year. If this prevails then there's a rationing that might happen. This means no going out to restaurants. You can get takeout, but they don't have water to do the dishes. But we haven't seen that, either. And it's rained several times since then, so maybe there's less chance of that.

But I think a lack of water is why there's been few bugs. Marie's been bitten several times, but I just haven't seen many. We even got an electro-racket a couple months ago, when we thought we might really need a weapon of mass-mosquito destruction.

It's like a small tennis racket and the handle holds a rechargeable battery. You flick it on and wave it around and when you come in contact with a mosquito-ZAP! Some rackets carry such a charge there isn't even a carcass left. The bug's just vaporized. So I guess it's an active bug zapper. You get to go get the bugs, instead of waiting for them to find the zapper. I saw a woman using one on the street, in front of her restaurant. It was like she was waving a bundle of firecrackers. Snap, crackle, pop. I haven't seen that many bugs in one place yet, but she was certainly frying something.

So we had a good time being tour guides and showing my parents around our newish city. And it was good to do something that wasn't going to school every day.

The really funny thing, my folks left on June 1st, their wedding anniversary, and due to the oddity of the international dateline and the speed of trans-pacific flight, they arrived at midnight on May 31st and had their wedding anniversary over. So we were wondering, does this mean they get to add another candle to the anniversary cake? Just wondering.

Hot fun

It's no longer really culture shock, I don't think. It's just standard boredom afflicting us.

I've had this same feeling after spending time contracting for Microsoft. Contracts are necessarily simpler jobs; they want you to just plug in and do the work, so I'm usually bored after a month with two to nine months more to work. And this is what that feels like.

Marie has said she's looking forward to a job she's good at. She seems to feel like she isn't cut out for exciting people, basically kids, about English. I think she does fine, but she's worried about the kids' experience, which probably makes her a better teacher. But she's said she's had feelings like she's done with this job.

I'm looking forward to a shower that doesn't start cold and take five minutes to get lukewarm, then warmer and when I turn it down it's cold for a minute, then warmer and warmer, and when I turn it down again, really cold!

I'm looking forward to not hanging all our laundry in a closet and using a dehumidifier to dry it in less than a day or two.

I'm not looking forward to having to get up at 6:30 or 7 a.m. five days a week. I like getting up anywhere from eight to ten six days a week and going to work around three or four.

I am looking forward to having Saturdays off again.

But we did have a Saturday off a couple weeks ago. We went to the beach, and it was good.
















Our Saturday off was the result of a holiday several weeks ago. Everyone, including kids, got a Thursday or Friday off, so they had to make it up at their regular school.

Don't ask me why, we still don't have answers on why they have loan holidays not actual holidays. But it meant that our kids were in their regular schools this Saturday, and everyone else was at work, so the beach was almost certainly much less crowded for it.
















This's most of the group, current and former teachers from Marie's school: Dorothy in red, then Belle and Melissa. Lying down are Aileen and Fiona. Vera's around somewhere. Dorothy is holding Bom-Bom and Kiki is in Melissa's lap. Not pictured is Belle's chihuahua Chi-Chi.

Marie asked if it sucked going to the beach with a bunch of hot Chinese women... and my wife. The obvious and safe answer was no, but it was also true. Mostly what this reminded me was that I'm old, and I was never cool, and I'm certainly not cool by any kind of Taiwanese standard. There's no badly written English on any of my shirts. Arf.
















It was really just great to sit on the sand, in the sun, not at work, not in the city, not yelling at kids, and look at the water. Next stop, Japan.





















I thought this was funny. The kid here has a kendo stick, a wooden samuari sword. The bag at his feet has a watermelon in it. He's blindfolded and his friends would guide him to the bag which he would smash the daylights outta and then they'd eat the cracked watermelon. I'm thinking about trying it. Good beach entertainment, and food.
























Besides the people, we brought a dog.
















Or two. Actually three, but I didn't get Marie with the third.

They were these little toy dogs that rode around in oversized purses, which brought to mind a cartoon that shows a woman rummaging through her bag trying to find something, and her friend asks, "what'd you lose? Wallet, cell phone, car keys?" The woman replies, "dog."
















Marie and I both got scorched. We're outta practice for being out in the sun for six hours. We're just peeling now. Oh, and thanks Patti, for the aloe. We nearly used it up after we got back. They must have something like it here, but I haven't seen any.

It was well worth it tho'. We had what felt like a long weekend, even if it was only two days. We played in the South China Sea. The lifeguards wouldn't let us go deeper than about waist high, but they went home at five, so I got a chance to swim out a little in this protected cove.

I think I'm only a bit disappointed we didn't walk around the beach to the far point. Maybe we'll make ourselves go back later in the summer, well after our skin's recovered.