Iyengar Yoga in Taiwan

I've suffered from back problems for years. My wife told me that I should try Iyengar yoga, a nice, slow, methodical way to get into yoga. She read a book about a Taiwanese that studied and traveled through India, and was now back in Taipei. "We should try to go to one of her classes." Candy says. The next day I meet a stranger on the road in downtown Taipei. We get to talking about yoga and life, and I know that Candy and her would get along great. We exchange numbers, I call Candy to tell her, and it turns out to be the same person she was talking about the night before. Love that kind of stuff.

Xiao Ying's class was exactly how I wanted to learn yoga. It was a slow introduction to the poses and the different parts of my body that I wasn't previously aware of. (You mean my sitting bone isn't just my butt?) As we reviewed previous poses, she listened and watched her students and expanded on what she had taught previously, offering deeper realms of the poses to those who could handle it (not me, except the head and hand stands), and gentler alternatives to those who have injuries to deal with (yeah, that's me, um, can I have two more bricks, another bolster, and an extra blanket please?)


I learned in Xiao Ying's class to slow down and listen to my body. I learned that my body will communicate with me if I am still enough and aware enough to listen to what it has to say. I learned that I can change my body's habits if I'm willing to commit to the discipline of giving my body what it deserves.


I had the opportunity to go to both her English and Chinese classes. It was fun to watch her grow into her role as teacher and facilitator. I think that facilitator is the best title for her, for she can only teach so much, but it's up to us individually to be able to follow the advice and suggestions of others willing to help. If you are another foreigner in Taiwan reading this, there are some great opportunities to go and meet up with Xiao Ying, her husband Andy, and their little lightning bolt, Marlowe down at their Yogi Guest House in Hualian. Trust me, check out her blog, get some friends together, book a couple of rooms, and get the heck out of Taipei for a weekend that's great for you. She may be reserved about her English, but it's great. You won't be disappointed. If you want more information, email her at yogameimei@gmail.com , or check out her blog at http://www.wretch.cc/blog/yingyoga . You can always drop me an email too if you need.


Thanks, Xiao Ying for the guidance and friendship that you have offered. Candy and I are honored to share paths in our lives with you and your family.


Kenn Loewen
qmowhite@gmail.com

Basic Survival – Foods in Chinese

So here is a list of some of the basic foods in Chinese. When I first got out here, I figured No problem. I know lots of Chinese food's names from the Dragon Fort back at home. After saying chow mein 10 times, yelling it, saying it slowly saying it quickly, I was really frustrated why they couldn't freaking understand Chinese. I mean, come on, it's chow mein. Of course, now I realize that chow mein is Cantonese, as are all the Chinese foods that I thought I knew. Chop suey, egg foo yung, and won ton soup makes no sense out here, no matter how loud you say it. I finally listened to a local order "Gee Row Fan" , and they got a nice bowl of rice with some light gravy and shredded chicken breast. I tried it, and to my surprise, out came some food. So, for the next 2 weeks, I ate this chicken rice at least twice a day until my food knowledge started to increase. Now, seven years later, I'm just starting to eat that Ji Rou Fan again, but hesitantly and only occasionally.

I put together this list of basic survival foods in Chinese. In the first column is PinYin. Many of you just coming out here won't know how to read PinYin, so I've also put together basic English phonetics to sound them out. Just read it like it seems, and it should get you what you want. Of course, I still to this day realize that sometimes you will get something totally different than you ordered. Be ready for it, smile, nod, eat, and work on your pronunciation for next time. Some of the PinYin may be a bit funky, but that's the way I learned it, the bastardized amalgamation of all the different styles that Taiwan insists on using. To see it bigger or print it, click on it, download and print it. Hope this helps.

I Get Paid To Be A Kid

Last summer, I decided to pick up some extra hours and start teaching kindergarten. I looked around for a while, and really like the fact that I'm a very sought after teacher. I applied at a lot of places, but ultimately, I was giving them the interview to decide where I wanted to work. It's a great job market to be in, but with the turn around of most foreign teachers out here being one year, a teacher with seven years of experience here in Taiwan definitely has the upper hand.

So many schools are horrible out here. I went to a couple of schools and when I looked at the curriculum, I was shocked to find that the kids would be learning around 80 new words and 12-15 new sentence patterns a week! And this was for their pre-school and kindergarten classes. I politely walked away, biting my tongue the whole way. Then, to my luck, I walked into the YMCA (go ahead, sing the song, I know you want to!). YMCA out here is the same organization as back at home, (well, basically). Their focus is on body, mind, and spirit. As I walked into the classroom, I was amazed to see the classes painted from top to bottom like a story book.

I've loved my job there, and have been learning a lot about really stepping back to the basics, when teaching the kids. It's great to work with these guys and really try to make it interesting. The other night, Candy came home to my latest project. I was teaching – I can move like a robot. , and , I go to grandpa's house by car. Check it out…

Finding Our New House

Candy and I have been dreaming of having our own house for quite a while now. Actually, it was Candy who brought me into this dream. We give up many things to live the lifestyle that we do. To travel as much as we do, the thoughts of owning a house have been out of reach in the past. I know many people are envious of our lifestyle, but well knowing that it's just not possible with a mortgage and kids. We have enjoyed and will continue to enjoy it, we hope. We want to own a home, but don't want to do it at a cost of our complete lifestyle. We realize that we will have to cut down on the travel, but we don't want to be owned by our mortgage.

Although we weren't in the financial position to buy, we would go out on our days or afternoons off and look at houses. It's a totally different market out here, and we set the goal to look at 100 houses before we bought. Because we don't have a tone of money, we knew that we wouldn't be buying a new house, at least that wasn't likely. So, we needed to spend time in the older houses, getting to know where the problems generally occurred. We wanted to see how people renovated them, what worked, what didn't, and generally, just get smarter about housing in Taiwan. Also, for me, I really needed to get used to this new style of building. I've got a pretty good idea of what to look for in Western houses, but here, everything is made of steel and concrete, and tile. So, we tackled it head on.

There's a place up behind where we are living now that we have continued to go back and look at as units come available. It's called Feng Huang Chen, or Phoenix City. It's only 1 km away from where we are now, and the more we look around, the more we like the area that we are in. There's an elementary school and a Jr. High school, a brand new hospital, a large community center with swimming pool, tennis, basketball, and badminton courts, a large outdoor track, a morning and evening market, and 2 minutes away is the Zhong He Interchange to the #3 highway. Plus, with the new hospital they have built expressways in and out of Taipei City, so it only takes about 10-15 minutes to get to downtown. These places on the hill have always caught our eye, because of the spectacular view that some of them hold.

In Taiwan, a view isn't even a real consideration. With the high density of the population out here, most places are built on alley ranging from 4-8 meters wide. That's the spacious side. On the back side, sometimes the buildings get so close that they literally almost touch. It's common to find an apartment where the back windows get no natural light what so ever. I had come to accept that this is a part of life out here that I would have to come to grips with. Candy knew that this was hard for me, and I just asked of her that we be able to see at least a tree out of 1 of the windows in the house. View hasn't really had value out here in the past either. It seems that every good view in Taiwan is reserved for the dead people. Due to Feng Shui, you want to leave your ancestors with the best view. Plus, because Taipei is situated in a basin, pretty much any view place will be well out of the city and thus, very inconvenient.

We had gone to check out this apartment about 3 months earlier with a real estate agent. The price at the time was $6.8 million (about $250,000 Can), which was way out of our budget. We loved it, but kept on looking around. Then, just recently, Candy found another house in the same community for private sale. We went up to look at it, and had a strange sense of dejavu. After a while we realized that it was the same one. With the market doing what it has been, and the interest rates falling to an amazing level, we have been more serious about the possibility of buying. I'm skeptical about where the market is going and how far down it will go, so I told Candy that I'm open to the possibilities of buying, but only if it's a sweet deal, and I mean sweet. We figured out what would be our highest amount we would spend on the place, and decided to just go and throw our number in and see if the owner would even be interested in talking with us. He was.

The middle man told us that he wouldn't even take our offer of $5.2 to the owner, and that we would really need to bring it up. We did, up to $5.4($200k Can), but told him that this really left us basically no room to move with our budget. We thought there was no way. The next day, we found out the owner, Ser Chen, wanted to meet up with us in McDonalds on Wednesday after work. We met with him and he explained that he had brought his price down to $6 million and that was pretty much all he could do. Luckily, he spoke English, so I was able to talk with him clearly. Negotiating a house sale in Chinese is a skill that I'm not quite ready for, yet. At that point, I just told him that we didn't want to waste his time or insult him, that we really didn't have that kind of money, or really much more than what we had offered. I said that we would leave him our number, and that with these increasingly difficult financial times, that if somewhere in the future our offer seemed better to him, that he could call us and we could talk then. He went of to talk to his middle man, a neighbor of his who takes a commission on the sale, and came back.

Then the dance began. He hummed and hawed and came down to $5.8. I punched numbers into the calculator and went up to $5.44. He talked with his wife and the middle man for a long time and finally came back with his bottom price of $5.6. I went up to $5.48 and gave a disappointing look to Candy and explained that furniture for the house would have to wait because we were already over the budget. He wanted more but I said I just didn't have it. We finally met at $5.5 million

So, now we have given him roughly 9% of the sale value as a down payment, and all the paperwork is into the bank to see if we can even get the money that we need. We are ready and willing to walk away from the house if we need to, and are really trying not to get attached to it, should that be the case. But, the reality of it is that every time we go up the mountain and look closer at the place, the more we can see ourselves in there for a long time. It's great going shopping for furniture now, cause it's not about maybe one day that will fit into our house, but will this actually fit nicely into our house? We just hope that the banks will lend us what we need, or this is all for nothing.

The apartment is on the fifth floor of five floors. It's about 10 years old and around 950 square feet plus balcony. The living room has large windows that look over all of Taipei city, from Taipei 101 across YangMing Mountain, over to Danshui, and back out towards TaoYuan. It's got 3 bedrooms and fantastic light (such a change from the dungeonesque light that we have in our place now). My favorite part is that up on the roof, we have about 850 square feet of roof top garden that goes along with our place, with the same amazing view. The community is great, a lot more artists and such, it seems. There's a pool and community center for those who want to sing Karaoke, and a basketball court. Also, it has a kids playground with massive dinosaurs (seriously, about 30 feet tall) that they can play on. It's a gated community, with guards at all the entrances. Our place also comes with a parking spot, which will cost us about $25K Can! Behind the community are mountain trails that I have run and ridden before. They go all over into the wilderness for many miles.

So, there's the lowdown for you all on what is happening with the house. You wanted to know, and now, one novel later, you do. Send us prayers that we will get this if we are meant to.

I Love My Truck

I love my truck, I really do. I love it enough to write about it. In some ways, I feel guilty that I'm writing about my truck before I write about Candy, but Candy has her own blog and my truck doesn't. I help represent those who can not represent themselves. (That's my own word!) I have a 1997 Toyota Zace. For all of you reading back in North America, you won't have any idea what that is. The Z captured my eye immediately when I got out here. The best word for it is "Old School". It really is. It's like an old school Landcruiser mated with an old school 4Runner, and their offspring is the Zace.

 

The Z's got lots of room inside. The back seat folds down nicely to fit our mountain bikes in the back. If I take off the headrest from the front passenger seat, my surfboard fits perfectly inside the cab, and that's no small task when you surf on a 9'4" board. I use my old 9mm climbing rope to lasso it into place so it doesn't fly around while I'm driving through the concrete jungle. Abbotsfordians, pay respect to the climbing rope that we all learned to climb on. It's still in use, although I wouldn't trust my life one it.

When I take out the back seat, I can put in my foam and sleep in the back. Now, I'm a bit longer than the back part of the cab, but I bought some mesh netting and a bunch of industrial magnets. I jerry-rig up a nice mosquito netting and keep the back door open so my feet can hang out the back without getting eaten alive, and it keeps the air flowing cause it gets real hot, real quick when that sun comes up. It may not be my VW van, but I can still sleep in it and I love that.

Now, a cross between a Landcruiser and a 4Runner would be a 4X4, you would expect. Much to my dismay, it is in fact, not! It still feels like it is, and sometimes this gets me into trouble. During a surf competition at WuShiGang (Black Stone Harbor), just shortly after I bought the Z, we were all camping out on the beach. I found an access point, and although I was cautious about driving on sand, it was very hard packed and I figured that I should be able to make it. I did make it, and crashed in the back of the Z and was loving life until the competition was over. As I went to drive away, I found out for the first time that the Z was in fact rear wheel drive. As I tried to pull out, it didn't move, so I gunned it and she sank faster than the Titanic in an iceberg field. Luckily, I had 20 friends there to help me push it out.

So, that's the story of my Z. I love her and she loves me. She suits me well as you can see.

In the Beginning

In the beginning, God created heaven and earth.  And earth was without form and void.

And God made a circular light in the heavens, and he called it the Sun.  And God saw that the light was good.

And the devil made a smaller light, rectangular in shape, and he called it TV.  And the Devil saw that the light was bad.

And God made springs which came out of the ground, oozing fountains of pure, fresh water.  And God saw that the water was good.

And the Devil invented fizzy drinks.  And saw that the fizzy drinks were bad.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth vegetables, and the herbs of the fields, that the children may grow up healthy.  And it was so.

And the Devil said, Let there be deep-fried potatoes.

And God said, Let the waters bring forth 10,000 varieties of fish, that they may provide sustenance for the children.

And the Devil arranged that the fish be smothered in batter, deep fried, and served with deep-fried potatoes.

And God created the cattle of the field, and said, Loewen Behold, I have given you every living creature that moveth: to you it shall be for meat.

And the Devil showed how the meat could be minced and turned into burgers, and suggesteth that it be always served with deep-fried potatoes.

And on the seventh day, God rested and asked that his children rest too, and use the day to contemplate the wonders of creation.  

And the Devil created the all-day brunch, cartoon TV channels, and Sunday newspapers filled with articles about celebrities, that the minds of the children be filled with rubbish and their bodies filled with yet more deep-fried potatoes.

And God said to the boy, Take the girl and go forth and multiply.  And of your seed I shall make a great nation, as numberless as the stars of the heavens.

And the Devil invented the computer and recruited 10,000 demons to fill it with online battles and images of top-heavy women.  And the boy did part with the girl and did instead cleave to the computer.

And God pointed out to the girl that he had made her with many attractive blandishments which she could use whenever the boy was away from the computer.

And the Devil invented the Nintendo DS Lite so that the boy will be able to take computer games with him wherever he goes.

Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the animals that God had created.  And the Devil did enter into the serpent and cause him to say to the girl and the boy, The tree in the middle of the garden the Lord hath told you not to touch.  But I say unto you, if you eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, your eyes will be opened and you shall be as gods.

And the boy and the girl looked at the serpent and said unto him: No thanks.  We liketh not fruit.  But hast thou any deep-fried potatoes?

 

By Nury Vittachi

Pictures sources: www.grease-trap-software.com and churchofsatan.tv

Politically Correct Midgets

You know, North America has really gone overboard with the whole political correctness thing. We have to be so careful what we call anyone anymore. Now, I'm sure from those of you who know me, my love for midgets comes as no surprise. I love them in so many ways, and may further this with a separate blog entry on what I would do with a midget if and when I have that opportunity. 

But what I want to touch on today is how upset I am with the "politically correct term" that midgets have to endure. I mean really, come on, who thinks that being called "vertically challenged" is any better or less condescending than midget. So, I have come up with a term that I feel is demonstrative of my affection for the world's "little people".

From this point on, I shall refer to them as 

the Gravitationally Loved.