Hungry Boy Revisited

For those of you who are just starting to read my blog, please read about hungry boy in the post called ‘Hunger’ down below before continuing with this post.
My second to last day in Taiwan was pretty good. I went swimming in a cool river, saw a fun waterfall, and little did I know—I was going to eat dinner with the hungry boy…and the rest of the branch. When I saw the hungry boy, my eyes lit up just like his do when he sees food. Now I know a portion of what he feels towards food. But not nearly the portion that he knows.
As soon as the prayer was said, he was the first person to start eating. As he looked over the table filled with all sorts of dishes, his joy was so great that he used just enough energy to smile—not without great effort of course. Since there was a returned return missionary visiting at the time, she showed a video apparently made for her wedding several months earlier. By this time, I was done eating already even though I hadn’t had lunch. When the video started, everyone stopped eating and started to watch the video. Everyone…except hungry boy. I watched him for the next several minutes. He didn’t even stop eating long enough to look up at the video the entire time.
Much later, other people had come by for dinner and were eating. Everyone that had been there from the beginning was done eating. Everyone…except hungry boy. He scooped the food into his mouth with his chopsticks so fluidly and methodically. It was mesmerizing. His mother told him that he should at least take a break. He replied that he had taken a break, a five minute break, and he was hungry again.
At the end, when everyone was leaving, Rita saw that nobody had taken the dessert that she had brought from Tainan where she was visiting some friends. She quickly went around telling people to take some. I noticed that everyone hesitated before taking some. Everyone…except…well, you probably know by now.
I suppose that if he is hungry after five minutes, then it really might be quite a feat to fast for an entire hour. Let’s just make it clear that I don’t want to walk a mile in his shoes.

Unexpectedness

One afternoon after spending time with a 5 five year old, I grabbed the bike and was about to leave. Little did I know—it wasn’t going to be that easy. A middle/upper aged woman asked me a question. I was in a hurry and was caught unawares so immediately I said that I don’t speak Chinese. That didn’t stop her. She said that I was very handsome and asked if I was twenty. I said that I was 22. She asked if I was American or Canadian. I responded that I was an American. She asked what I was doing in Taiwan. I said that I was here to have fun. She found out that I had only been here for less than two months and couldn’t believe it. She said my Chinese was very good. She asked me if I had a girlfriend. This question brought back memories from my mission. So many snakes would ask this same type of question. I shrugged it off because I didn’t think an old lady would hit on me. I told her I do have a girlfriend. She told me that her daughter married an American from Tennessee. Then the whopper came—she asked me out to dinner. A woman old enough to be my mother was hitting on me!!! I told her that I couldn’t. Finally, she said goodbye and cackled as she rode away on her bicycle. It was the most unexpected experience I could have had that day.

Ping Pong

Ping pong is inseparable from asian culture. I had always believed that to be true but didn’t realize what that entailed. I suppose the only way I really could find out was by playing with an asian in an asian country—with someone who hadn’t been adulterated with American culture. Believe it or not, I have had this opportunity and would like to share some of my thoughts on the subject.
People in Asia practice with machines—just like in tennis. (pictured below) I practiced with a man named Greg. Ping pong is more than a game when people train with machines. They practice ping pong almost as much as the average American spends on the sofa watching endless hours of ‘prime time’ television. Never mind, that can’t be true. Only Americans have that much time.



As you can see in the picture, they start at a young age in their training to become ping pong masters.

People in Asia have names for each type of hit—whether it has a spin, what kind of spin, what direction the ball was hit to, what direction the ball was hit from. It’s like the Eskimos and the twelve words they have for snow. While I was playing with an asian, he kept telling me something in Taiwanese that sounded like do da ha. I couldn’t figure out what the ha was let alone how to do it.
The person I played first was a retired ping pong master. He hadn’t played in about four years. That was good because it has been about four years since my ping pong glory days in high school. As we began playing, we were both a little rusty. After a while, he had missed a few slams and took his sandals off. Everyone’s jaw dropped. He really meant business. Well, several minutes later, after I had missed a few shots and I took off my flip-flops. The crowd went wild. Really, all seven of them. I lost in the end but I am happy to say I held my ground for quite some time. Its just something in their genes. Asians have uncanny ping pong skills. In the United States, football players are the jocks. You can see where this is going. In Asia, Ping pong champs are heroes.

Southernmost Point

We set out on a journey to the southernmost part of Taiwan. It was a treacherous journey on a motorized scooter. Finally we arrived at the following sign and had to walk from there.






I thought, “Oh no!! 500 miles!!!!” as we started on the path. Taiwanese miles sure are short. It only took about 5 to 10 minutes to walk 500 m. When we arrived at the platform with the following sign, I noticed that we weren’t at the very tip. There was still land.

So I jumped down from the platform (it must have been at least 2 Taiwanese miles down) and made the final journey to the tip of Taiwan as pictured below.

It was a long and arduous adventure, but alas, victory was inevitable.

Hunger

I had the fine opportunity to go on a campout with the branch I have been going to here in Taiwan. There was a boy about 10 years old that I shall never forget. The first night, a group of people were sitting and relaxing. He was sitting in the circle but had a dazed look on his face. Everyone kept asking him if he was hungry. His mom had already told him that he couldn’t have anymore food and that he had eaten enough. However, that didn’t stop some of the members from getting him some food. Every time they offered him more food, he took it while he shoveled more food into his mouth. He was eating so much!! Finally, his mom came by and yelled at him. In the middle of the night, some of the young men were making some noodles. The hungry boy was being guarded by his dad. He kept moaning about how he saw them making the food and now he was hungry. He tried to convince his dad that he could eat because there were vegetables in the food too. He was asked what he did on fast Sundays. He didn’t want to talk about that. But he eventually confessed that his fasting record was indeed 1 hour.
The next morning, he couldn’t wait to have breakfast. Some people were playing cards as they waited for breakfast to be made. He was sitting with them but his eyes were glazed over again. Finally, when breakfast was ready, his eyes lit up and he was so happy. He ate and ate and then he hid himself to eat some more so his parents wouldn’t see him.
Later in the day, a sister went up to him, started rubbing his belly and said, “西瓜甜不甜?” which means, “Is the watermelon sweet?” It was the funniest thing I ever understood in Chinese.
Never shall I forget the Taiwanese watermelon-stomached hungry boy.

Karaoke

I was invited by a family I met in Chaozhou to go with them to an island off the south-western coast of Taiwan. I thought it might be fun and exciting. We took a cool boat to get to the island. It was a small passenger boat and about four people threw up because they got sea-sick. A friend of the family that invited me worked for the government and had some official business on the island. Therefore, we all ate lunch with the mayor. I never would have thought that one day I would grow up to eat lunch with a mayor of a small island off the coast of Taiwan. He told me that he wanted me to meet one of his daughters who was a student in the US somewhere. He said that if I married her, he wouldn’t have to sell his blood anymore for her schooling. He thought he was pretty funny. I said, “no can do, bub”. He told me to have some beer. I politely refused and said that I would drink water. He kept asking and said that if I drank beer, everything would be free. If I drank anything else, I would pay for everything. Again I told him that water is what I wanted. By then he was bored with the conversation and started talking with the other people at the table.

We only had one scooter with us so we needed to do something about that. The mayor (prefect might be a better word) offered a scooter. It was an electric scooter and they said it was great. Well, the electric scooter only went about 10 km/h. 10!! It was a rainy day and so we couldn’t go to see much. The family was going to stay overnight on the island and I was going back with the government guys. Every time I saw them, they were drinking. The last boat left at about 5 o’clock and at about 4 I was already waiting to go. With the rain there was nothing I could do. We went to find the guy I was going back with and he was in a bar singing karaoke. So I went to wait. They wanted me to sing a song. Finally I thought, “what the heck, they are all drunk anyway.” I sang a couple of songs. They had about ten songs in English. I didn’t really know the songs but I figured it didn’t really matter.

When I got to Taiwan, I got a lot of tourist brochures to find out what things were must dos and must sees. I never found the one that said sing karaoke with drunk government employees.

But then there was the drive home. After we took the boat back we got in the car and the guy drove like a maniac. He drove like a Brazilian taxi driver. He broke pretty much every traffic law I know.

I guess it was a pretty rare experience. At least I got some squid jerky out of the deal.

Typhoon action

One weekend I went to a national park called Kending. It was a magical place with blue skies, beaches and …me! We arrived on Friday and had dinner in a very fancy restaurant--it’s amazing what can happen with coupons. It was an all you can eat place. You can believe it--a fancy all you can eat place. Yiru and I didn’t waste any time. He ate with a purpose. I ate with a fork. The next day we were going to go to the beach. I was so excited because I hadn’t been to a beach to swim in many years. I got in the water and three minutes later, everyone was called out of the water because of a typhoon warning. Boy was I disappointed. It was like teasing a fat kid with a piece of licorice. With nothing else to do we started on our way back to Chaozhou. It wasn’t long before the cloudless sky turned into a raging tempest. As cars went by we were splashed with huge amounts of water. No, we weren’t in a car, we were on a scooter. But it actually felt as if we were in a water park. The water came from everywhere. It came from above, below and from the sides. It actually felt pretty good when the water was warmed on the street and then gushed onto us by passing traffic. I am not sure if it is an achievement or punishment to have driven 100 km on a scooter in a typhoon. I think I like not knowing.

Compliments

The people of Taiwan are very nice. It seems as if they are a little more open than their American counterparts--especially the men. Waiting in a scooter-shop the repairman checking the scooter out looked at me and said, “you have a very beautiful nose.” I didn’t know what to say so I said thank you, what else could I say. I looked at his nose and considered saying, “you have a beautiful nose too.” But then I thought about what was going through my head and stopped myself. Besides, his nose really wasn’t anything special.

At church, an old man came up to me in the hallway and looked at me—so I shook his hand. He said, “Wow, very handsome. Very handsome” and walked away happily.

A young boy, probably eleven, peeked on me while I was sleeping on a campout the branch had put on. The next day he said I looked very cute while I slept-not like his mom or his dad.

Well anyway, It sure is strange getting these kinds of compliments, then I realized all of them came from the male side of the species. Wow. Right when I realized this, the young boy walked by. All the times he had tried to hold my hand flashed in my head. I thought, oh no, I don’t want to be the guy that turned an 11 year old Taiwanese boy gay.