Movies

For more than 5 months I haven't watch TV in Taiwan. The cable in my room has BBC news, CNN news, National Geographic, Discovery, some Travelogues and Movies in English with Chinese subtitles. I can definitely say that doing without TV wouldn't kill you.


But I do have a membership in a movie rental store. I paid about 30NT($1US) for a five day rental. The rental store has a few movies from Taiwan and China that have English subtitles, if they don't have subtitles it is a waste of time as my Chinese is not good enough.

I know some people don't like to see the same movies again(and again) but I like to see the details I missed the previous times. Here are my recommendations:

Best Taiwanese movie:     Cape #7
Best Chinese movie:         Not One Less
Best NonChinese movie:   Apocalypto

Here are my comments on other movies I have seen in Tainan:

Not One Less            一个都不能少
    Totally a sad story, the life in rural China

Raise the Red Lantern     大红灯笼高高挂
    China's old attitudes towards women

To Live                    活着
    Great story of China in to Communist times

Happy Times            幸福時光
    Commentary on life in China, the blind girl is a metaphor for China

Taipei Au Revoir
    Cute, young people in Taipei

Manga
    Gangster movie in Taipei

Green Tea                    綠茶
    When they start talking about fortune tellers it just turns me off, I didn't finish the movie

Winds of September        九降風
    HS days in HsinChu, Baseball scandals

Eternal Summer            盛夏光
    Broke Back Mountain between HS and University

Prince of Tears                淚王子
    White Terror and the Waishengren - Ang Lee

Shanghai                    上還
    All the big names John Cusack(USA), Chow Yong Fat(HK), Gong Li(China), Ken Tanaka(Japan). Gong Li was good

Forever Enthralled            梅蘭芳
    Beijing Opera

Parking                        停車
    The tough life in Taipei, life's random events

It frosts me when the movie case has lots of English but the movies itself doesn't have English subtitles, whether there are English subtitles are hidden by the store labels. These movies are without subtitles, but with lots of English on the cover. Watch out.

A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop  三枪拍案惊奇
City of Sadness                                 悲情城市
The Puppet Master                            戲夢人生
Seven Days in Heaven                       父後七日

Shan Gri La and planes

The tallest building in Taiwan is:

It is right next to the campus and sometimes when I am lost on the streets of Tainan, I can get my bearings by finding this building on the skyline.

I had my most expensive meal in Tainan on the restaurant on the top floor. I could look out over my city. It was a new perspective.

As I reported before there is an airport to the south of Tainan. It is both an airport for local flights and the Taiwanese Air Force. The older F16s fly out of this airport and some weeks in Tainan it feels like the Blue Angels are in town. Even though I hear them almost everyday I have been slow on the draw to get a picture of them. Recently, I got some shots. Here's a single.

Here's two in formation.

I've tried using the zoom feature but no luck. China has 1600+ missiles pointed at Taiwan. So much for friendly relationships.

While walking the street of Tainan, I did find Shangrila, but it was closed.

Fun Stuff3

The current law in Taiwan is that any building with 5 floors must have an elevator.  But many buildings were built before this law. NYC is also famous for such "walkups". So there are ad hoc solutions, many older buildings have a  crane off the balcony.

But there are other solutions like an outside elevator.

And for moving day we bring in the big equipments.

But the fifth floor in Taiwan is actually the fourth floor in US thinking. There is no ground floor/main floor that corresponds to zero. In Taiwan the first floor is the ground/main floor. (For mathematicians, zero is a very important number, it is not nothing!)

The new word in Taiwan for "cool" is "kui"(the letter L is hard to pronounce) pronounced as "coo".

Do we every outgrown our need for bathroom humour?  I think not. These two have a problem.

 She seems to have solved the problem.

 He seems to be quite proud of his accomplishments.

This last picture was one of the hardest shots, the sign is on Plexiglas spaced from the wall. The camera kept focusing on the wall and so unfocused on the sign. The "back-lighted" option seemed to work the best.

Fun Stuff2

I was at a dinner in Taipei and there were these two child performers that went about the restaurant with a 15 minute dialog that held all the Chinese speakers spell bound. That they talked for 15 minutes without a script and with animation was just amazing to watch, even though I didn't know what the hell they were saying.

I suppose, nowadays with all of our computers as memory aids, personal memory isn't as important as before, just like being able to compute isn't needed as much with computers doing the donkey work.

I have been happy with the English books at the NCKU library but I recently visited the Tainan Municipal Library.

As could be expected, they didn't use the Dewey Decimal system, there is another classification system and it is the one used with the Chinese books at the NCKU library too.

The classes are:

    * 000 – Computer science, information and general works
    * 100 – Philosophy and psychology
    * 200 – Religion
    * 300 – Social sciences
    * 400 – Language
    * 500 – Science (including mathematics)
    * 600 – Technology and applied Science
    * 700 – Arts and recreation
    * 800 – Literature
    * 900 – History, geography, and biography

I was recently visited by alien being but he was strangely silent.

On the trip to Ali Shan, our tour bus stopped at one of the many rest stops for a bathroom break. This sign caught my eye.

The translation is a little unclear. The first line says this lowered sink is for children to use, the second line says not to put your feet with pressure on the sink. So it's OK to wash your feet in this lowered sink but don't stand on the sink. Also it's a good idea not to beat the children.

Who knew that Tainan has a Jewish spopts equipment store?

And a preschool for love babies. I didn't think there were that many "love babies" in Tainan. Who doesn't like burgers and pudding?

Gambling

I love this cartoon:

I am vehemently opposed to gambling. As a mathematician, I know from the Central Limit Theorem of Probability: "The more you gamble, the more you will lose." This is because anyone who offers a gambling opportunity("the house") knows the odds are in their favor. Those fantastic establishments built in the desert of Las Vegas are built on the loses of losers and nothing else. There maybe "streaks" that defy the Central Limit Theorem but the limit behavior is clear. To think that you can win against the house is sign of a weak mind.

In Taiwan, gambling on games of chance is legal. For example, pull boards at the night markets. You pay a fee to pull a piece a paper to see if you are a winner. At the end of the day do you think "the house" is a loser?

This is like the Catholic Church's version of bingo. God helps those that lose to the church. A real loser is assured a place in Heaven for doing the Lord's work.

But in Taiwan, with unmonitored Internet access, gambling is just a click away. In a culture where money is #1, lots of people are caught up in the quest for the "big score". That this is a losing position should be part of any education.

But, for me, the most insidious efforts, are those of governments that legalize gambling. I think legislators that are unwilling to raise taxes are willing to declare gambling a "sin" and all sin taxes are defensible. I guess, if being stupid is a sin then gambling really is a sin. If the sin only effected the sinner I would have no problem, but we all know that the gambling of the "sinners" effects their children, their relatives, their friends, ... But for politicians, dividing the electorate is part of the game.

Gambling is legal in Taiwan with government sponsored lotteries and sports betting on baseball games, ...

Gambling on baseball games in Taiwan has lead to several prosecutions where baseball players have been paid to throw games by Taiwanese gangsters. Gambling effects are pernicious.

But in Taiwan, wagering on games of skill is NOT legal. So playing MahJhong, Poker(and variants) and XiangQi(Chinese Chess) for money is NOT legal. To gamble legally you have to be as stupid as your fellow players. All sinners must be equally stupid.

But I must admit. I do like the excitement of winning. In the March-April receipt lottery I won 200NT (~6-7US$).

I also like gambling when I go into a Taiwanese restaurant and order from the Chinese menu. Some dishes have names that are archaic or flowery so it's a gamble what happens. Sometimes, I close my eyes and just point, luckily I not a picky eater.

Sewers

One of my 16 greatgreatgreat grandfathers, Michael Von Essen, came from Bavaria to the United States in 1852. With such a distinguished name, I speculate that he was a second, third ... son, and in those days the opportunities for such a son was as a soldier or a priest as the inheritance all went to the first son.

In China/Taiwan the inheritance is better in that the wealth is divided among the sons, with the oldest given an extra portion and generally in charge of family affairs. Of course, the daughters get nothing because they have married into other families. This seems to be the default position if the father doesn't make arrangements before death. Asians in general, I think don't like to talk about death so this custom is often the case. But I also think nowadays Asian families value daughters more than in the past. But if there is one thing certain in this world it is: WE ALL WILL DIE. So not making plans is the height of idiocy. I welcome readers to add their own thoughts.

Anyway, a helpful U.S. immigration official helped Michael VonEssen become Michael Ess and ever since everyone in America that has Ess as a last name has Michael VonEssen as an ancestor. One of a kind. I, Michael Arthur Ess, was named after my Irish Grandfather, Michael McMahon and my German Grandfather, Arthur Ess).


Joseph Ess, one of Michael VonEssen's sons, started a foundry in Chaska Minnesota. The continuing story of Ess Brothers and Sons Inc is found at:

 
http://www.essbrothers.com/new_page_2.htm

One of the major products of the Ess foundry has been manhole covers.

My father's father was Arthur Ess, a younger brother of Edmund Ess, one of the 6 generation of owners of the foundry. I speculate that Arthur Ess, being a younger son was not going to be an owner of the Ess foundry because the foundry stayed in the hands of the oldest son following the old German tradition. Gruss Gott for that, who wants to grow up in a hick town like Chaska anyway?

I use to go out to Chaska for Ess family reunions, I remember meeting Edmund as the first person I ever saw who actually wore suspenders. I went to the Ess foundry once as a kid, I never saw so much rust in one place. Rust is actually a pretty color.

The story of the confrontation between the EPA and the Ess foundry at the Ess foundry website is definitely onesided. I'm sure that the rest of Chaska was cheering when the Ess foundry moved out of downtown Chaska.

If there is one technology that hasn't changed much in more that 100 years, it has to be manhole covers. I would guess that in every country in the world they look the same. Here's what they look like in Tainan.

But there are some structures still left from Japanese time, like these sewer culverts. Japanese construction often uses an arch whereas Chinese construction uses a lentil.

Wu Lun Che

I have never been happy with my pictures of a San Lun Che(3 wheel vehicle) because I only had pictures of them driving past me. I have less than 2 week left in Taiwan and I had given up on getting good pictures. But then as a gift from the gods, I came across this machine on the way from school.

Wow, he was stopped at a fire hydrant filling up the water tank in the bed. So while he filled up with a heavy load, I could shoot pictures.

Sure enough a big car/truck engine with his seat on the engine hood. Children, can we all say: VIBRATIONS! And look at the heavy duty springs for the front suspension.

I've always wanted a close look at the front wheel because what kind of brake can stop such a behemoth! Look at the close up, no brake at all! And with a with a full tank of water, I think he doesn't stop for red lights.

All the braking power is in the back! Here's the rear view.

So actually this one is not even a San Lun Che(3 wheeled vehicle), but a Wu lun Che(5 wheeled vehicle)!

This was one of the luckiest days on Tainan. I talked with the driver for awhile and you could tell he was proud to own a one of a kind vehicle. I got to use the phrase: "wu er du yi".