A poem

Rockin' Chair

Andrew Chau

Taiwan should be famous for it’s Jazz.

It really should.

Magic-cognate, holes in wall,
Spewing equal-impartial jazz-bop,

Pop-rock, Soul.

Sold to the nearest beetle nut

Bestowing vendor, because your gums

And teeth are that perfect shade of not red,

Just.

Karaoke Jim approaches you in severed jumpsuit.

Colors red, white, and blue.

That’s Taiwan on his back, his skin,

His tanned to purple skin.
You can hear his armpits and groin

Stretch and grind like soft leather.

Then you notice, what you hear are

His slipper-shoes.

Skip, skid, slid and slide down that

Alley way on that starless, bright-mooned night,

As the cosmic waltz flies away on this hemisphere,

Offering her hand out to any passer by,
Anyone with a large enough fire in their eye.
The natives dance it in their steps, knowing

A dominant truth:
That we’re all spinning in God’s eye, so we vibrate

Onward, chewing chitter, clapping wonder,

Slap-Happy Thunder thighs oh-so-tightly

On the weather worn leather moped seat.

Screeching by on by the leviathans of the road,

Buses, trucks, shipping ever shifting loads

Of fun, rhythm screaming Ba-da-bum,

Ba-da-bum, ba-da-BAHM,

And underneath, with the trained ear you hear,

“For passengers who are leaving, why?”

As we sit on silently with sly on the

Technological humming of trains,

White with smiles all pressed tightly within,

Feigning our sleep,

So that the jazz dies in the surgical

Fluoresce wonder, under the passing of

Projectile time, and vomit.

With the holes sealed and faces peeled

Of any attachment, reading plainly and

Falsely, “I don’t think I care.”

Someone finally loses their gasket, and steam

Of Laughter escapes into the air!

So that you can at once hear the jazz in the wind,

Behind the doors that Jim opens

To show you. Spirits of neither factions,

Not of black, and not of white, fly across the night

Infecting with pleasure the unveiling of time’s

Signature. Little tangled wisp, It’s Christmas time

In this never ending zoo.

What’s out of tune,

Is you.

I have so many, so, so many crushes. One for my professor at NTU, two for two schoolmates, three more for three friends, and of course, one giant crush for the one I love. All these crushes make me wonder, am I a crush fiend? I know I have issues with the drink, but are crushes one of those things that simply won't leave me be? I dream of crushes of people who I've had crushes on years ago, and I dream of crushes of a younger, more innocent me. Fortunately my reflection in the dreams was not as beautiful as Narcissus, I came back in one piece. Though I was being held by a former lover, and was dipped into the water, but she pulled me out almost instantly, and I managed to keep my bottle of beer intact.

A few nights ago, I drank the right amount to have a extensive hangover until today. All day yesterday I slept, woke at 6 for dinner, and promptly went back to sleep six hours later. Yesterday felt surreal, needless to say to those who have had severe hangovers before, doesn't a Hangover feel like a dream? For example, it's spring outside right now. FINALLY! Spring in Taiwan, maybe that's why I've been getting all these crushes. Heck, the flowers are blooming, and the fauna mating, there are going to be lots of babies in about nine months from now. Which begs the attention to heed the great amount of change a single individual will go through in a full cycle of birth. Imagine a woman, who just woke up from a night with her lover, they made love. And Love did they make, because as this moment that you read this, another woman who had the same awakening nine months ago today, is now in the greatest pain that she will ever have to endure. I met a formally pregnant woman two nights ago, she has a six month old new baby boy. Ten years sit between the eldest and the younger, from what my mother's told me, I don't blame her. But she's still going to try for a girl.

It's spring time in Taiwan, for all to see. It's hot now, and the air is thick enough to swim in. But darn-it, it's cold no more. In a few weeks the smells of body oder will linger in every coagulated corner of air, and the embarrassed mask of perfume will only get muddled up with it. But it will smell like a wet, happening spring. Mothers with babies in their bellies will sweat for the both of them, and come December, a little baby will go through the same old winter, also their first Taiwanese, miserable winter. But mother will have child, and child will have ten toes, and 10 fingers, two eyes, one nose. Ears wrapped snug in a yellow blanket in a room with yellow walls. And that child will grow up to have so many crushes of their own, and I'll be that same parent that I fortunately have that comes to their room every morning when they're 20 and visiting home, and just stand there with the door open and looking at them sleep, only wishing I had a womb. To the future Mrs.: How I envy you so.

Atlas Shrugged One Day..

In Chinese, when an earth quake happens, we say something equivalent to "Atlas shrugged!" but we call Atlas the "Land Cow" (地牛), and we say "That bovine don' roll'd over" and we have southern accents. Today (2011, March 11) Japan had an earth quake of 8.9 on the Richter Scale. The epicenter, I just read online at http://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/3/20110311230401391-112300.html, was right off the coast Japan's belly. But consider this: As of 9:40pm, there are only a recorded 104 deaths, 200 missing, and 244 injured. 448 people. I guess thank god and technology, in 1923 the Kanto plains were hit, and there were deaths over 100,000 people.

Humanity has come a "long" way. With our recognized 2000, and some odd years of total civilization. We pride ourselves with neglect of the pink, bald apes that we are. I don't think the majority of us can even fathom just how uniquely, and single handedly -as a species- we have made an impact. We take for granted our cities, our urban life styles, our concrete and numerous alloys. We are the only mammal I know of that enjoys living like insects. Crawling and rushing from A to B. Skipping over the long forgotten infinity, which is so neatly tucked in between the two. We take for granted our numeric system, our base-10. Our algebra (or where the word originally came from), and our jazz. We have to brandish popularity. Perspectives that speak to the lowest of common denominators. We neglect the rhythm of the earth beneath our feet, and that that rhythm is influenced by all the vibration around it. From the swing of the universe and vacuum that it is, to the smallest, scrawniest worm, wiggling in the equivalent darkness. There are no two finger prints alike, no two creatures with the same DNA, no two individuals with the same smell, but doesn't the universe still repeat itself?

In the most famous of Chinese philosophies, (The Zhou Yi, or Yi Jing) an astounding observation was made. This is a fact, and not an idea; As long as a person lives, then they posses all the energy required to change. It works harmoniously with "If there's a will, then there's a way." But it goes deeper yet; The will might not even be one that is heard by you. It might be taken for granted, just as so many other things are. But the will is there, because you are alive. You needn't to "unleash" it, but merely exercise it's way. Flip a switch when you leave the house. Turn off extensions on the socket. Don't waste water. Ride a bicycle, or better yet, WALK. Get some sun to remind yourself how much it means to you and the life you share. Quit smoking. Drink only when in a joyous occasion; Dance when you are not, or don't bother being shy of being a goof. If you can make yourself laugh, then that's enough. Revere your land, but not under a banner and the name of a nation, or by the color of the skin of those who inhabit it. But rather, the common sound, maybe, that all piss on water will make. Spend some time of your day just listening to someone, you don't always have to have something to say. You don't even need to give advice, just listen, become an object of relief. Relieve yourself.

As you all may know, Taiwan is an island. You can fit about two of them, and a lot of Rhode Islands to spare in the state of Colorado. We have a population of approximately 23,321,300. And we make all your electronics, Apples in particular. Yet somehow, we are the second most when it comes to over all climate change. It's almost mid March. I've been here for almost three months, and I've seen the sun in consecutive days, less than five times. It feels like winter, hell it is winter. On average, every year our summers get hotter by 1 degree Celsius, and our winters colder by the same degree. I wonder sometimes, if Taiwan will become Euripides' Medea metaphor those scholars so suggest. I wonder if Formosa will slaughter her children and go into the blazing wind of the night on the tails of golden dragons as we drown in fire and burn in steam. They say approximately 500 years from now and Taipei will return to the swamp it was. The only two places that I've lived in have been swamps. Taipei, New Orleans. Repeat. Repeat. I don't know much, but I do know, the good ol' Gaia, daughter of Chaos, has been 'round much longer than we ever will. Will we change? Well, the dinosaurs went away with a 'poof' didn't they?

Some food for thought.

What Jason

chose to mess

with.

And her famous "Knife Spanking" debuts.

Courtesy of Wikipedia, see Medea page.

Mommy?

That day and this, were, and are, quite the days for Medea. It was gloomy today, dreary, and wet. I bet it was the same for Medea on her fateful day. Medea, some brave-heart child killer, only in spite of the man who was her lover. Unfortunately, as I believe, what became his demise was not his hubris, his pride, or even his penis, but his short attention span that all men of all generations and cultures share. A.D.D. was the hunter’s best trait when he failed to catch one fish, so that he could see the bird numbly and dumbly, lanky as it were, trying to catch the same fish he was, unaware of him because of it’s less evolved peripheral eyes.

Medea shared obsession from the gathers, so obsessed were they with their baskets and collections of what they were in charge of collecting, to compete with the other collector/gathers at the end of the day. She obsessed over her man, the cases of Jason and Medea of course, are of an older generation of human, when our animalistic traits, perchance, still ran our lives.

Euripides still should not be praised for his apparent observation of his generation, the Greeks

specifically. But rather his modern eyes that saw women as being capable of having great power, in a time when men were the center of society. It was a cultural paradox when Medea committed such enormity. But then again, her lineage traced back to the Titans. That in itself, is a good enough spot to end what I’m trying to say.

Medea, granddaughter of the sun-god Helios, who was son of the Titans Hyperion, and Theia (Hesiod)

was also extremely adept in sorcery. As a testimony of love to Jason, she not only helped him cheat her own father’s test for the Golden Fleece, but also murdered her own brother to help Jason succeed in returning to his throne. When that fails, she performs the dirty work for Jason in murdering his usurping uncle by tricking his own daughters into cutting him into pieces. And two kids and many years later, Jason cheated on her. So Medea wanted revenge, reasonable, being the powerful woman that she was. She killed Creon and Glauce, and then her two kids. Then, grandpa Sun sent her a golden chariot driven by Dragons, since everyone knew winged-horses were a “Perseus” thing.

That was what we covered in my History of Western Theatre class today, minus the whole A.D.D. man and O.C.D. woman part. So far I’ve seen two interesting things of the Students and Professors that I have met in the Theatre Department. In New Orleans and in Taipei, the professors resemble each other more than the students. Elder woman motherly Professor, and a younger, edgier, well-dressed woman professor of great intellect and equal influence in their respective fields. It caught me off guard, but then I saw the students, and I saw the abundant possibilities of youth again. Faces all aimed in different directions, with equally determined hearts to follow. Before the class ended we entered a very interesting dialogue between the class body and the professor. My colleagues were all rather upset by the story, some felt that the filicide was excessive; killing Creon and Glauce was already a lot, his future was ruined and he had no retreat, his family was leaving. But he still had heirs, he still had a glimmer of future, of hope. And Medea would just not have that. One of my classmates who, is quite the character, said that Medea could always resurrect her sons with the same spell that she used to trick Jason’s cousins all those years ago

, since she kept the corpses from Jason. She wouldn’t even let him bury them.

One girl who clearly disliked the filicide, “If Jason was a man who wanted and took pleasure in titles, why didn’t she just ruin his reputation or reduce him to a beggar or shame him?” But Jason was already a man of great renown, people loved and worshiped him because of the heroic deeds he had done in the past and they supported his marriage to Glauce as his Manly Right. Also, Euripides had to write the story into a timeframe of less than or equal to twenty-four hours, since that’s how Greek tragedies were always written.

Medea apparently has a Text-to-World connection to the time it was written. Scholars (and I love it when they do this) speculated that Euripides used the mad woman to reflect a small colony owned by Corinth that was approached by Athens during the Peloponnesian War; Athens offers independence, or something-a-rather, and the small colony gives Corinth the bird, and somehow, becomes yet another colony to Athens. So... I like the more surface reading that Euripides was basically empowering woman, and scaring men with their “steel balls” with such wise words as “She’s actually pretty good with a knife” and “You always carry your shield around home?” or my favorite, “Jason, why have you been sleeping on Creon’s couch lately? Oh right...”

Thank you for your time.

¹ Keep in mind, these were the ancestors who were too drunk to fight off their powerful descendants, who went on to create Caesars, kill a Messiah, and pioneer new methods and means of fornication, among the famous Cleopatra, and for some odd reason, lionesses.

² See “Helios” Wikipedia.

Fun fact: Helios had a brother and a sister, respectively Eos and Selene. The dawn and the moon. Class comes from the word Classics for a good reason.

³ When Medea convinced Jason’s cousins to murder their father, it was because of a spell she taught them, in which she slaughtered an old goat and put it’s carcass into a boiling cauldron, then she momboed some jumbo and out came a little lamb; the cousins, being the blonds they were, forget to ask Medea to write down the jumbo, and just made some daddy-stew. Medea did the same trick on Jason’s freshly dead father in some versions of the Golden Fleece, which brought him back a youth.

First Post, Listen up!

My two month long winter break just ended two weeks ago. I originally came home to spend time with my newly sixteen year old sister, who consequently decided she wanted to spend her sophomore year in South Dakota. In the winter time. I watched her nearly freeze to death on my weather updates from the computer and felt guilty about my complaints of the Taiwan cold when talking to my friends in New Orleans. But school's finally started and a lot has already happened over the break, which I will catch up on later.

So here I am, back at home, home. Where my parents and grandmother live on the mountain (Yang Ming) and have been since I was fourteen. I'm back in my basement bedroom, the same one I've had since my grandmother moved in. I'm back on the same old island that I grew up on, feeling the awkwardness of Chinese battling the newly English-formatted mouth. Trying new things out, in a new place, or old things out in an old place. I'm currently taking a semester abroad, at home. Studying Theatre, as I was in the States, now at National Taiwan University, which I could not have gotten into except for the reason being that I applied from abroad. They love their foreigners, or they hate them because everyone else loves them. I've had the pleasure of growing up with ignorance on the both sides of not knowing that I'm in fact more Chinese than not. I hope that sentence proves something.

This whole blog idea was started with my Grandmother (Mother's side, not the one in Taiwan), who loves hearing about these things from various family members because she has very little technological skill herself. But she brought my attention to the average sufferings any twenty to twenty-one year old might be suffering and gave it a name "Re-Entry Shock"

As any scholar who leaves home for higher education knows, culture shock is something quite crippling and prominent when one goes to college. And for those fortunate enough to have the same experience twice in their first go at college, but in a new surrounding, they will have additional culture shock, but in my special case (cue lights) my grandmother titled it "Re-Entry Shock" which to some people might not mean a lot, but for me is really beginning to form some ground under my fears.

I'm not quite sure what this blog is to become, but I'll try my best to make it as critical and light-hearted as possible. Something in the neighborhood of one to five blogs a week. Nothing special.