Ideas #3

Here are some ideas from Taiwan.

In Taiwan, you can buy a plate with a lock that clamps on to the top of the shifter
plate. It locks the stick shift into the park position. Better that the "club" on the stearing wheel.

The curbs in Taiwan rarely have ramps built in the cement for cars to enter and exit. So each business makes their own ramp for vaulting the curb.

Not many use trundle sew machines anymore but at one restaurant they used these sewing machine tables for tables. Good for ADD children.

We tried out these tandem bikes, the experience tells us to eschew those bikes that have no ability to adjust for different size riders. 

The derailers on bikes are just there to adjust the ratios between the main sprocket and the rear wheel. There really is no reason why the front and rear wheel has to be of the same radius.

The ramp in the middle of the stairway is for bicycles. 

Those are not Christmas presents in the brightly colored packages. Those are bricks used as door stops or decorations.

More Signs

Somehow a "Men's Boutique" just seems uncomfortable for me. Maybe I'm just not enough of a metrosexual.

"Hello Kitty" is now a brand more than 30 years old. I know that "Hello Kitty" now has a line of jewelry for those little girls that have grown up and now have money to make the big buck purchases.

Our apartment has a washer but no dryer, so after doing a load of laundry I take to this place two blocks away. It's OK, but I wouldn't call it "paradise"

This gigantic sign, marks halfway from Danshui to the Taipei train station.

Rather than "Hotel Sense", I think they wanted to say: "Sensual Hotel". One sounds too practical.

So this is a well known marriage business, having a worn out sign testifies to its longevity, but no one can read the sign. But everyone in the marriage market knows this old store and hopefully their longevity will be imparted to the newly weds. The logic becomes just too hard to follow.

Certain streets in Taipei use to be dedicated to a particular product, like books, music, cameras, ... This sgn points the way to the music street.

Are these guys Laurel and Hardy or what?

Pooh English, wow, what is that? On one side you have to get the kids interested, but on the parent's side, it doesn't sound that high level.

This picture is just a fourth of the bikes in this area. I think all graduates think they have now moved on beyond bicycles.

This is new word for me. Makes sense and sounds scientific!

Here are the golf bars that I couldn't find before. 2 right next to each other.

Library Project

Today, June 1st, I finished my library project. I have visited all 57 branches of the Taipei City Library. They are all distributed over Taipei City, so I think I know Taipei City pretty well.

The last library on the list was the Longhua library in the Nangang district. I had gone to this library in the past but it was in the process of moving to a new location so I had to come back at a later time. The new library is in a city social center but the previous location was on the second floor above a city market. I took this picture of the old sign on the defunct library after visitng the new library.

Even though the Longhua library is no longer at this location, the sign will be here until:

1. A typhoon takes it down
2. A earthquake takes it down
3. The market building in taken down for a new development

It is just the Taiwan way of not expending effort unless there is some benefit.

For me, just getting out to see the city not on the tourist guide was the big benefit. (Retirement means that "time" is not that big of an issue.) Here are somethings that aren't in the tourist guide books. Out in Beitou(a Taipei District)
I came across a statue workshop with some works out on the alley.

The guy on the horse is obviously Chiang Kai-shek, but who is the other guy? After awhile, I realized that he was Chiang Ching-guo, Chiang Kai-shek's son.
Like with all Chinese emperors, when the emperor died , his son became the new emperor. Chinag Kai-shek died in 1975 and his son continued martial law until 1987. But Chiang Ching-guo, who died in 1988, didn't want to continue the dynasty and set the path to the first democratic elections in 1996.

(I think the market for such statues has dried up.)

Also in Beitou, I came across this,

Those are noodles drying in the sun. I had never seen this before, I should have asked where they were being sent.

This is the "graduation tree" which in the past, usually bloomed in June when the graduates are done. But now it blooms before the exams are finished. For many this early blooming is the clearest example that global warming is happening. Forget was scientists with their fancy words are saying, my own personal experience is that these thing are happening much earlier.

Tainan Church

I lived for two 6 month periods in Tainan, a city in southern Taiwan, so I thought I knew that place petty well. But on the web I saw a story about a famous church in Tainan that I had never been to. So on a recent trip to Tainan, I had to check it out. OK so what denomination is this church?

Looks pretty Asian but if you could read the 3 character in gold on black you'd know the answer. How about this interior? does that help?

I guess lots of Christian Churches have pews so that's not much of a clue. (Are those Confessional Booths?) How about this one?

The Holy Water font at the entrance has to be a big clue. And an altar has to be a give away.

This is the Catholic Church in Tainan: "Our Lady, Queen of China Cathedral" Here is Mother Mary as a Chinese.

But this is not just a church, this is a cathedral,  cardinal's residence, Taiwan has less than 100,000 Catholics how come it merits a cardinal? (Some parishes in the US have more that 100,000 members but no cardinal.)

In China there is no religious freedom, each religion must recognized  the communist party as the highest authority in China. This is a problem for the Catholics and the Pope. So the Catholic religion is outlawed in China. For a long time, the Vatican recognized the ROC(Republic of China(Taiwan)) at the rightful government of China because if they returned to the mainland the  ROC would let the Catholics operate as usual. But even the Vatican now believes that that is not going to happen.

But a cardinal in Taiwan is a good place to have an observer on the world's  largest potential source of believers(1.3 billion).

Anyway, the Catholic church in Tainan is in the Daoist style. Most Christian churches are in the European style. So when does "adaptation" become "pandering".

Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial

The other great Memorial Hall in Taipei is for Chiang Kai-shek. Built by Chiang Kai-shek, to memorialize himself. (Children can we define the word "'ego"?) When Chiang Kai-shek was defeated by the communists in 1949 and retreated to Taiwan, he believed that he was still the rightful "Emperor of China" and therefore deserved a monument like he might have had he been in Beijing, like at the Tienanmen Square.

After Sun Yat Sen died in 1925, he successor was Chiang Kai-shek, Chiang Kai-shek became the KMT leader and in the next 25 years he had to fight warlords, the communists and the Japanese. At the end of WWII only the communists were left, but Chiang Kai-shek was defeated and retreated to Taiwan. The communists would have pursued him to Taiwan, but the Korean War broke out and the US supported Chiang as allies against the communists.

Chiang maintained until his death in 1975 that he would retake the mainland from the communists. (Children can we define the word "delusion"?) But maintaining that delusion on the small island of Taiwan is a hard task. But Chiang built a great memorial to himself. This building has a great statue of Chiang seated as President Lincoln from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.

Every hour there is a "changing of the guard" like at Buckingham Palace in England.

Here is a movie from the center of the courtyard of the CKS Memorial from the Gate to the National Gallery to the CKS Memorial to the National Theater back to the Gate.

Sun Yat Sen Memorial

There are 2 great Memorial Halls in Taipei, one to Sun Yat Sen and the other to Chiang Kai-shek. Sun Yat Sen is sometimes referred to as the "father of modern China", as he was the most prominent revolutionary when the Qing Dynasty was overthrown in 1911. The Qing Dynasty had been the rulers of China since 1644 and would be the last of the emperors of China.(Until Mao Tze-tung)

After the 1911 revolution, Sun Yat Sen founded the KMT - the Chinese National Party which is currently the party in power in Taiwan. It is a Chinese tradition that by making a connection between the current leadership and the past leadership you increase the legitimacy of the current leadership. That's why whenever there is a need to maintain the status quo, everyone one claims the  legacy of Confucius.  Both the Communists in the People's Republic China(Mainland) and the Nationalists in the Republic of China(Taiwan) claim Sun Yat Sen and Confucius as their legacy. So both build monuments to these dead guys so that they can inherit their followers.

This Hall has art galleries, history displays, theaters, ... all the cultural things.
This one is in the shadow of the Taipei 101.

I recently was invited to the Ningbo Opera at the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Theater.
The Ningbo Opera Company is from Mainland China. It was a Chinese story told with Western musical instruments and dancing that looked a lot like ballet. The costumes and staging were elaborate, At times I thought I was at a Broadway Musical. I'm sure sometime in the future some guy from China will see a Broadway musical and think that it looks like the Ningbo Opera Company.

Night Markets

One of the best things to do in Taipei is go to the night markets. Probably the biggest is the ShiLin Night Market. (Which is NOT close to the ShiLin MRT station but is close to the JianTan MRT station.)

The ShiLin Night Market was closed for renovation but it reopened this year bigger and better than every. So much bigger and better, that tourist agencies sell weekend packages in Singapore, HongKong and Japan to come to Taiwan for the weekend night markets. The weekend tourist are so thick that it is hard to move. You just get in the crowd and go with the flow.

So the local go on Monday through Thursday. It's important to go as a group, then you can sample lots of dishes and not get filled on just one.

But there are smaller night market like the one outside our apartment.