About Me

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Yilan, Taiwan
I just returned back to the States after 11 years in Taiwan with my daughter. Taiwan is an excellent base for us explore Asia, while living in relative (gun free) safety, while benefiting from a cheap and efficient national health care system. The people are amazing too. I have Taiwanese friendships that are 20 years old and I'm always making new ones! My coworker here in CO is from Taiwan.

Saturday, May 31, 2008

The Case for Taiwan

It’s simple really.

I had planned on teaching high school social studies this fall in the TIR (Teacher’s in Residence Program) where someone w/ a BA can become a teacher. I applied for an opening at Arapaho H.S which is down the street from here, but I doubt I will follow through with this. Who knows? I don’t totally don’t want to close the door on anything w/o having all (or as much) info. I will talk to the Littleton Public Schools admin tell them my concerns and see what they can do for me.

If I take on the TIR program (after having been hired by a school first), then I begin classes in July, start full time in August and go to night school every Monday at Metro for the first year I teach. The TIR program is 2 years. From teachers I’ve talked to I’m looking at least to 60 hour work weeks, with the prep time, grading papers + Monday nights, I would never see Zenaida! I don’t really want to be away from her all that long so soon, she is still so young and so attached to me (and vice versa), she still nurses and sleeps with me. And I would still have to live w/ my folks for a year saving for a place of my own. ‘Im itching to spread my wings be independent. I’m too old to be with them.

Now, I’ve worked in Taiwan before, I known what I’m getting myself into more or less. I can get a full time job teaching ESL in a kindergarten, which is 9-5 and 25-30 hours teaching, 1 ½ hour lunch breaks, free lunch and breakfast. The cost of living is cheaper, I can immediately (or after 3 months) get my own apt. The best thing of all is Zenaida can attend the same school I teach (they start at age 2-3), so I can see her during the day, possibly teach some of her classes, take lunch w/ her, even nap with her if I wanted.

What has prevented me from not going to Taiwan sooner, is the shock it will be for Zenaida; she will be emerged in Mandarin, she will stand out as a foreigner, the crowds, the climate, and being uprooted from her home and extended family; it weighs on my conscious. I think she can handle it, we will be together, she will like being in school w/other kids, she will become fluent in Mandarin (and maybe Taiwanese and Hakka too). It’s temporary, only for 2 years max. We can come home w/money in the bank and I can pursue the TIR program and teach high school when she starts school .

So I've applied to some places throughout Taiwan. I would love to be near my friends in Taipei and live in Taipei country again, but I am also interested in living in other parts of the island and have applied to a school in Tainan and am making plans for a phone interview. I don’t think most of the schools have been too keen on me bringing a daughter into the equation. An exception is a school in Hsinchu, but they wanted me to sign a contract where they were going to charge me 1/3 of my salary to pay for Zenaida’s books, which is insane because she cant read or write yet. I think having her in an ESL school is an advantage for the school because she is so articulate for her age and has the vocab of a 4 year old. But these schools make their profit on these books, so many books.

I'm taking it one day at a time and see what happens. Its exciting really because anything can manifest right now.

I'm freeing some space, making room for grace.  Now the danger is having an attachment of what Zenaida and I’s life will be in Taiwan, should we go that route. The one benefit of international traveling is having these initial expectations and being so wrong because the reality far exceeds the expectations. It’s a blast. I miss it. I wonder if I have the courage or wisdom to make the right decision.

Friday, May 16, 2008

This past week and the Denver political scene

I’ve had an exciting week enjoying the gifts of the local Denver political scene.

On Saturday night I volunteered to represent INCITE! at the Chinooks Fund’s grantee awards and anniversary shindig. No one from INCITE Denver could make it, so I came and kidnapped Kristin. We parked at the Alliance Building (former CWA headquarters where we officially never had our own parking spots) and walked down 15th to the new Museum of Modern Art, made our way up to the rooftop into the empty windowed room to see Mayor Hickenlooper there. The free bar was outside, so Kris and I put our coats back on and headed out there and started our first round. The Mayor to our surprise joined us and we three enjoyed the solitude and the view. He and Kristin started w/ Fat Tires and me with a German Riesling. We made small talk. I was a little shocked that Hickenlooper seemed to want to hang w/us. He was very down to earth, talking to us like we had hung out a million times before. The mayor had a way of talking, not like a lisp, but a something, which made him seem even more personable. He is much shorter than I thought. (Not like pharonic Webb whom Kris and I once met in his circular, dark office. We talked about meeting Webb later that night driving around for parking. How huge he was, like Goliath, very kingly, I faintly remember incense burning in the background, us groveling on our knees, everyone hushed in awe, being transported back to the days of pharaoh).

He made a comment about all the development (cranes everywhere the eye turned); pointing to one new building coming up and saying he had no idea about that one. I sarcastically replied, “You think you would know about that, being the mayor”. He laughed. He made a reference to “if you build it they will come” w/o mentioning Field of Dreams or baseball, but I piped up about the Democratic National Convention and he yelped, “Are you trying to raise my blood pressure!” Kris brought up the current play at Curious Theater, his endorsement of it, we talked a little about it, he was actually on his way there after chatting w/us and then he was off to a friend’s wedding. After the mayor left it was glasses of champagne for Kris and I. We unapologetically got sloshed on bubbly, which made having to stand and speak in front of a room of people a lot easier. It also made us literally the last people to leave, standing next to the dessert bar w/ a fresh glass of bubbly, catching up since last we hanged. We did manage to see one room of the main photography exhibit, before driving around for 30 minutes looking for a parking spot to dance off our buzz before driving home. Needless to say, I never made the drive home, having had 2 rums and cokes. We never did find the right club, well we did, w/ a world class DJ in town, but we didn’t want to spend the 20$ door charge. Anyway it was a memorable night.

I’ve got to hand it to Sherelle (Chinook’s young ED), she put on a good show. Chinook had some kind of beatnik thing going, interactive, improve drama with the audience and former EDs. It was very cool, very emotional. Sherelle is multi-talented. They opened with a pair of Aztec drummers/pipers, very emotive. I had a good time. It made going to the Frat like club afterwards a bit of a downer compared to the culture and brains that was bursting at the seams at the Museum.

A few days later I went to my friend AJ Clemmons’ fundraising event at someone’s lovely house. She is running for CU Regent and her district is the size of Connecticut (or Rhode Island, something small and Eastern) compromising Douglas Co, Jeff co, some of Arapahoe, and a few more counties. Anyway, she needs to raise like $100,000 and has only 11,000, but she is hopeful. More than hopeful she felt called by God to run (chew on that Christian Right!). She is black, liberal, Christian, did I mention liberal? And she has a mission to reform higher education like other developed countries, where they actually invest in human capitol (think France and free university). Anyway, the other 2 Democratic Regents spoke and I was flabbergasted at the necessity of AJ’s victory. The Democrats control the House, the state Senate, we now have a Democrat Governor again, but the only Republican majority is the Regents—and they are not about to give that up. Decisions are being made behind closed doors about the direction of funding for higher education and thus who has access to it. It was fun to catch up with the rest of the CWA Board, meet some new people and stuff myself on Turkish appetizers and political intrigues (AJ’s boxing and alligator wrestling stories).

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Divorce: No one is the winner in this scenario

My brother’s divorce was finalized yesterday and its such a strange sensation to have such utter joy and relief on a subject that is so sad –divorce. Such is the rollercoaster ride from hell that everyone in my family was on, even my grandparents in another state were affected.

My ex-sister-in law Cristi was my own private Nemesis. The first several times I met her she was drunk and obnoxious, rude and self-absorbed. It wasn’t until my brother got arrested the first time that the extent of her drinking problem surfaced out in the open. Suddenly, her poor manners, lack of eye contact, always talking about herself, made sense. I despised seeing her, being in her company and said nothing about it to anyone those first years. (I was usually only in town between travels anyway and about ready to leave).

When they married and her hidden addiction was out of the bottle I made my intuitions public info. My mom was mean to me and said I was just jealous of Cristi and didn’t take my impressions very seriously. Even if I happened to be jealous of her (which I wasn’t), my mom hardly treated me lovingly about it and when Cristi came over, excluded me from their private conversation and walks which was very confusing to me emotionally.

I suppose the first turn off about Cristi was the moment she first opened her mouth. Her voice is about 4 octaves too high. You know that disease of the throat common to American women when they try to be cute and girlish? Its not something European do (their men like sexy, husky voices, think Kathleen Turner who was trained on an English stage). When Cristi talked I knew she was a fraud, a fake, hiding her true self so much and for so long, she didn’t have a clue who she was.

Like a wave that ebbs and flows, I sometimes had periods of compassion for her. Her terrible childhood, her drunk mom who was too drunk to dress her properly for school or pick her up from school, who was exposed to adult themes too young. Cristi’s only survival technique was to be charming, cute, have teachers and people in authority feel sorry for her. She used this skill with judges against my brother, with the police that pull her over for driving drunk (letting her call her latest friend of the day). That’s why this divorce has taken so long and at so much monetary expense (Cristi’s legal fees are $40,000) to everyone, because Cristi lied, cheated and stole. She is a real con-artist. Truth takes a while to come out, but thanks God that it does eventually.

She is still under the spell of he mother who probably gave her all the bad advice to take my brother for all he was worth (they never got along). I don’t think there is enough space or I don’t want to waste my energy writing of all the terrible things Cristi did to my brother and my family to win, to mooch $. But the most terrible was using my niece Emma as leverage. Sure the credit card frauds in my bro’s name is bad and she still has to pay them off, or throwing my bro in jail (3x) on a Friday so he is there all weekend because she HAD the power to do so is bad, but not like taking poor care of Emma. Emma comes with shoes and clothes too small, greasy hair, and at one time a kidney and bladder infection.

Anyway, its all over. The restraining orders (two) against my bro are dropped. Douglas Co decided on their own to put a protection order against Cristi to protect my brother!! My, my how the tables have turned! My bro has to pay her 40,000 over 2 years and then from then on just pay child support (about 400 a month). She has 10 random tests for alcohol, a month-a dilution test counts as a failed test. There is no way she will be clean for 6 months. When she fails Emma goes to my brother and Cristi into treatment. If she sobers up for 6 months Emma is split 50/50, for now we (my bro) has Emma from Sun-Thurs.

No one is the winner in this scenario, certainly not Emma. But at least Cristi under her banner of lies, cheating and playing dirty is not the winner. This is probably the first time she has had to be accountable for her lies and drinking. (Most people learn at age 5 that the truth comes out eventually).

As long as my bro feels he is the winner Im happy. Now he is free to reap the harvest of his “China deal” if it pans out will be very lucrative and Cristi, greedy, little Gullum lost her precious dream of living off my brother. Her “precious” was not Emma, or a happy marriage or a sober life, but $ and now she has to pay her legal fees and all the charges from her frauds. She is forced to pay up. I just hope she can see that she is not the victim, that she made these choices. With my brother out of her life who can she blame now?

And now my mind is thinking of the significance if the number 40, hmm the number 0f human testing. (The Israelites wandered for 40 years in the desert, Jesus fasted 40 days)...Testing my bro these 2 years, testing Cristi to pay, they both have to pay 40,000 dollars to someone. I just hope my bro doesnt start dating anyone for these 2 years, but thats another subject.

The Incites of Brigitte Gabriel

Last Women's Bible study meeting we watched a DVD taped at a local Denver area church of the dynamic speaker Brigitte Gabriel, the Christian Lebanese survivor of her countries Civil War, her experience of Israeli civilization and her ranting warnings of Islamic infiltration of the American Education system. Her life story is incredible, I can see why she believes in the things she does. There were some points she said I completely agreed with (allowing hate speech in Mosques and Madrassas in America + US dependence on oil is crazy). I went on her website and signed one of her petitions, but did I agree with everything she said, NO! Did I cheer when her white, middle class, conservative audience cheered, not at all.

The issue of Islamic mosques and Madrassas promoting hate education that literally states their followers are to eventually kill or destroy anyone should be banned. This is not something so very hard to do. If Bush could dismantle free speech and political rights under the banner of the “Patriot” Act, then something could be done. A few years ago there was an Amendment here in Colorado, a Hate Speech Amendment that the voters did not pass. The Christian Conservative lobbied that the amendment was pro-homosexual, that current legislation already provided for the protection of gays and they didn’t need any special laws. A federal Hate Speech Amendment can allow for the freedom of expression and assembly only up the point where it does not arm or threaten to harm someone else. Thus mosques and madrassas here in America could be regulated.

Some of the comments that I disagreed with was her belief that all Muslims condone the destruction of Israel and America. I think its dangerous to promote the idea that all Muslims because of their religion believe in suicide bombs, in taking over America, like they did in Lebanon. I know from personal experience that this is not the case. My friends from Bangladesh certainly do not. Sufist Muslims do not. Turkey is a secular country, I was treated more than well while traveling there and in fact felt safer being a woman in Turkey than in America. (Brigitte mentioned the Armenian genocide by Turkey but failed to mention the Native American genocide, or the black genocide of the slave trade). In Muslim Kashmir, Egypt, and Turkey I was treated well. Muslim hospitality outshines American any day. That’s not to deny the existence of Muslim militant extremists or minimize their threat. The Islamic Brotherhood is in Egypt after all, there were bombings in Istanbul, Delhi, Dahab. But to preach that all Muslims have this agenda is also extreme, especially within the current American environment of anti-brown, anti-Muslim, anti-anything that does not conform to this cookie-cutter mentality. I don’t see how this will promote peace in the Middle East.

Brigitte also praised America for it’s “civilization”, for being the greatest country in the world and if “people didn’t like it they should get out! ” (standing ovation, claps all around). It’s scary that informed dissent is synonymous with anti-patriotism. By sheer definition of democracy, it’s the cooperation of different views being allowed the space to express those views that makes a democracy what it is. If we all believed the same and if differences of belief are not allowed space we might as well be living in Tehran. She invoked the “founding fathers” who themselves were more influenced by the political philosopher John Locke and his “tyranny of the majority” than Jesus’ example of renouncing the accumulation of wealth and befriending the rejects of society.

I sat there asking myself, what does she mean about America being this beacon of civilization and greatness? Does she mean economically? Lets give credit where credit is due, because our industrialization was won by the genocide of millions of Natives, the slavery of millions of kidnapped Africans, the exploitation of European and Asian immigrants and the free labor of women. The US gov’t doesn’t hide the fact that it exists to protect private property, the accumulation of wealth by a minority and maintain an economic system that be definition classist (there is nothing democratic about capitalism).

She talked about trashing political correctness and yet she was hardly historically correct. American’s “noble” war history of fighting Nazi fascism was invoked, and yet America knew for 3 years about the Nazi concentration camps and the mass genocide of Jews and did nothing about it, for 3 years! Isnt it more true that the US joined the war in Europe when US markets supplying arms to the Allies was threatened? That the US provoked the bombing of Pearl Harbor because the US did not want a post war Asia with Japan controlling Pacific markets?

Not only is it a lie but its dangerous to make a god out of America, to glorify a myth at the expense of truth.

Brigitte Gabrial brought up how immigrants need to learn English the way every immigrant in the past learned English (more thunderous applause), that in the past it only took one generation before the immigrants’ kids learned English and she might as well as called Spanish speaking (that was who she was referring to) immigrants “illiterate peasants”. I take issue with this sentiment. I have worked with illegal Spanish speaking immigrants (through this same church, in cohort with different ladies) and their children are fluent in both English and Spanish. Its also much harder to learn a new foreign language as an adult when all your free time is spent working at McDonald’s 7 days a week. Brigitte’s pro-English statement brought up a host of issues for me, how my father was spanked for speaking English in kindergarten, how his (and my mother’s) family has been living in the SW United States since the 1500’s and how Spanish speaking peoples living in these areas were protected to speak their language under the Treaty of Hildago through the loss by Mexico to the American instigated war for territory (the former Mexican citizen’s land and property were also protected under the treaty, but like ALL American treaties with Natives, was broken---but that’s another story).

Far be it to ask the common American (white, middle class) to learn a foreign language that is useful. The majority of the world’s citizens speak Mandarin 1st and Spanish 2nd, .
English is the lingua franca of the elites.

I also sat up thinking last night about her very original statement, that if “people didn’t like America they should get out !” Doesn’t she know how hard that is! If it were that easy to get EU Citizenship I would. Not to say Europe is morally superior to the US, because it is not, they are also dealing with their racism and anti-Semitism, but I and my daughter would have a higher quality of living. I would be a citizen of France because of the health care system, free University, subsidized housing for parents, free day care. Its much easier to be a mother in France. In Italy I would be paid for having children! I would be a citizen of a Scandinavian country for the 3 years paid maternity leave, not to mention 5 weeks paid vacation, higher quality of food, and importance of relationships over working.

What do you say to the people who believe in the American Dream? It must work for them. I find it a myth myself. And when it doesn’t work, like now when its all starting to fall apart, unemployment, high gas costs, high food costs, soaring foreclosures, what does Middle America believe? They don’t question the myth, they find a scapegoat, illegals taking all the jobs, Saudi conspiracies, far be it for them to question the fiscal sanity of financing a war (516,000,000,000 $ as of this writing) while cutting taxes or the morality of cutting programs for poor children to finance the war. How can you have an intelligent debate with people who get their facts from their daily newspaper or local TV news? These people who have never even had lunch with a Muslim much less lived in a Muslim country? Whose only friends are heterosexual and white? Who voted for Bush?

When someone like Brigitte Gabriel comes along and legitimizes their racist and classist fears and scapegoats illegals, all Muslims because she herself is brown, I think that’s dangerous. Its time for Middle America to deal with their White privilege. They have taken it for granted so long, and though it should be their responsibility to educate themselves about it or at least bring up the subject, this painful issues will probably fall on the shoulder of poor people of color (again) to teach them about it (and pat them on the shoulder when they inevitable break down and cry in a the fragilest moment of self-realization). I’ve seen educated white women deal with their white privilege, and it aint pretty! (“But I dated a black man I cant be racist!”)

What specifically is Brigitte Gabriel’s mission? To protect America from becoming like Lebanon, a democracy that disappeared under Muslim infiltration where Christians were mass murdered. Fine I can agree with that! That may have something to do w/ border control, I can see the logic, but to voice anti-Mexican sentiments is wrong, To gloss over American history without attention to the details to make a point is misleading and inciting.

So what am I going to do about it? Silently squirm during the applause, the discussion?I have to say something to these women without damaging our friendship, just to be respectful to them and not be fake or 2 faced. I hate to be the b--sh-- police, but as long as it is spoken in love I suppose because "Love covers a multitude of sins..."

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Confronting the Cookie Cutter Christianity

I find myself losing sleep over not speaking up in my Bible study Group. This gracious group of women let me into their circle for a Bible Study group at my church, we had an informal book club, met at each other’s house, they kindly ate my gluten free experiments and pray for my family.

But every time we meet, politics inevitably creeps up into the conversation. Out of politeness I refrain from adding my 2 cents. Why should my opinions take up space? They bash the Democratic party and the Democratic presidential candidates continually every week and complain how the “liberal media’ engages in Bush bashing, I keep silent. It would open a can of worms.

Ive reached a point that if I keep silent any longer than I am a fraud to my own political convictions, personal history and moral obligations. I cannot live a life that is in any way inauthentic. My hesitation of joining a church is now being made manifest. When I first became a Christian it was because of a supernatural experience in my bathtub Christmas Eve ’99 that changed my life forever. In those fragile first years, I would of benefited greatly from the support of a community of believers. But I refrained from going to church for several years because I perceived such a strong pressure to conform to a cookie-cutter image of what it means to be an American Christian, I did not want to lose my individuality to a human establishment, or a human idea influenced by class, education, race, culture of what a Christian should act like, look like, etc. Human history if rife with the mistakes of that.

Yes I believe I am the righteousness of God via Jesus, that when the Supreme Being looks at me, I am sinless, guiltless, perfection and a work in progress. Such love, I need no intermediary, just this relationship of communion where God lives in me and I in God, because of the sacrifice of Jesus. I am indeed a new creation, everyday, with no cares of the past or the future, just resting with and in the eternal I AM. My only struggle is to rest and relax into this perfect, finished work.

That does not mean I suddenly am a NRA card carrying Republican, that I renounce women’s lib and will vote against Obama, that I support sex education based on abstinence, fear a Homosexual agenda etc or supported the Iraqi invasion.

Jesus challenged the religious elites and establishment of His time. His followers were society’s rejects, disenfranzhized, invisible—prostitutes, tax collectors, lepers. What happens when His church becomes the establishment, the religious elites? How does the contemporary church deal with this tension of being united, of growing as one body and yet not being elitist, of being exclusive. Who are the rejected outcasts of today? What groups are invisible? Native Americans are hidden away on reservations, transgender persons, AIDS victims, the very poor, illegal immigrants. I don’t see America’s church’s reaching out to any of these groups. Who are the excluded?