Dog Daze: Canine Lovers and Puppy Love in Yilan

Up the road, morning bike ride

Even as we were negotiating with our now landlady, we were planning to finally get a dog (or two.) It really didn't seem like a feasible idea living in an apartment. Once we got the house, it was just natural. As my friend Chris was walking around Taiwan (Footprints) raising money for one of the many dog shelter/orgs for strays, he picked up Gina, a stray who followed him on his journey. They came by as they passed through Yilan in July and Chris basically gave me his blessing that we could take her. For a month as we were settling in she stayed with friends in Taipei.

During our first month settling in, we contacted Jenny from the French bakery for another stray. Far be it for her to not only be a business entrepreneur with her French husband, but she dedicates all her free time, feeding, caring for strays and finding them owners. She knows the ins and outs of various local shelters, dog "farms" and vets (She uses and recommends 開口笑寵物精品店). It was through her that we got Zarkon our German Shepherd/Taiwan Mountain dog mix. He maybe is 6 months, no one is sure. He spent 2 months on a farm after he was found and was just annoyingly LOUD, that the neighbors would throw firecrackers at him to scare him quiet. His bark is pretty loud, but his first few days here were quiet. Thanks to Jenny, Zarkon came to us already fixed, chipped and vaccinated. (Its the law here for all pets to be chipped to keep from owners abandoning their pets, although pet stores don't sell them chipped.)

It was a week after we got Zarkon that Chris' friends from Taipei drove Gina over. (Their son was one of the boys who walked around Taiwan with Chris.) Fantastic people. I was worried Gina and Zarkon wouldn't get along as Zarkon was jealous and territorial, but they're the best of buds now. Zarkon is a big bully/baby, but Gina knows how to wind him up and she's much faster.

Gina post fixin'

Gina was already vaccinated when the Taipei clan brought her so we just got her fixed and chipped like two days ago for free.The only 2 places to get a pet spayed or neutered for free in Yilan (normally costs around 4000 NT) is either the Yilan Animal shelter, a reputed hideous place or the kind people in Dongshan's  湖光動物醫院 - 宜蘭分院. My car was in the shop and Jenny got some of her dog volunteers to drive Gina to Dongshan to get fixed. I ended up paying 1800 for her and Zarkon's ear mites drops, meds for her skin allergy and meds for her wound to not get infected. I'm very thankful I didn't have to pay for her getting fixed because that money went to fixing my car!

I grew up with a husky but I don't remember it being so tiresome. Taking care of my dogs is exhausting. Now I see why childless people refer to them as their children. I am up every morning between 5:30-6:15 and take them for a run (while I bike) usually before I have coffee and definitely before I eat. I love that time of day, especially where I live and lead them along the river, deeper into the mountains. I was until, we had a run in with a troupe of Macaques two weeks ago.

Around seven or more of them started to cross our path, about 30 meters away, and Gina takes off as she does full speed into the forest, while Zarkon is barking like a nutter and I have him on leash, waiting for them to all cross. There were infants, a few adolescents , the bigger ones were Zarkon's size but heavier. I was flipping scared, utterly defenseless. The troupe had crossed, but their alpha was holding the line as they escaped into the forest. He was barking at us, like ten feet above us, and not liking Zarkon barking at him at all. The branches under him were heaving, leaves were falling, I feared being mauled and jumped on my bike, leaving Gina hidden in the trees and yelled at Zarkon to, "GO!" We made it home and I was just about to get on my scooter and return to for Gina when she comes trotting along from the back way. What a relief, I literally wept from relief.

I haven't been down that bit since, which is a shame because its my home road, just up the mountain and very pretty. I debated getting pepper spray and I'm looking for an air horn (like in basketball) which is harder to find than I thought, so I can just scare any monkeys away. These aren't your friendly, tamed, Kaohsiung monkey mountain sort. They are here almost every morning, this is there territory. So I go downriver where the mountain is further in land behind the many BnBs, far from monkeys. Its still pretty, but not my first choice.



Zarkon and Gina are hard work, but give us a lot of joy and entertainment (watching them play is therapeutic).  Besides taking them for a run in the mornings, I come home during my lunch break to take them for a quick walk and pee, and then rush home to do the same thing after I clock out.   My kid helps when she can, like in the evenings. In the mornings I feed them dry food from Carrefore and in the evenings mix it up with gourmet wet food from Cookie and Cream a pet store owned by my friend (my former trainer and meat head) who lived in NZ. All his food is high quality, he won't sell animals and he takes in strays too. His big canned wet food is imported from NZ and has clean ingredients, like lamb, pumpkin, chickpeas (and is cheaper than Wonder Pet in front of Luna Plaza).

Sometimes I give them raw, but not everyday its just too expensive buying at the supermarket. My former housemate 17 years ago from my Tamsui days, has a house in Hsinchu and adopted 2 strays herself. Her dogs are on a raw diet and she buys the scraps from the traditional market, costing them 200 NT a week for 2 dogs. Going to the local butchers at the traditional market is next on my to do list. My friend in Dongshan has 12 dogs all on a raw diet which just blows my mind, the expense, the time, the personal sacrifice. Respect.

Its easy to think Taiwan isn't a pleasant place to be a dog.  When I was first in Taiwan 17 years ago (I worked in Tamsui for a year and a half before traveling, going back to school, etc.) it seemed like everyone hated dogs. Then when I returned with my kid in 2008, it appeared like a kind of fad that people have dogs (the little toy ones or an exotic Husky). The problem is people would get a dog and realize how much work they are and then drive out to the countryside, like Yilan and abandon their pooch. My neighborhood in Yuanshan is rife with street dogs, mostly because the farmers don't spay or neuter. Its one of the reasons driving a scooter here is dangerous at night (that and the old people.) Nevertheless, there are just as many people in Taiwan (expats and locals) who are also working tirelessly on the behalf of animal rights, or are responsible dog owners themselves. Recently, Taiwan became the first Asian country to officially ban dog and cat meat for human consumption- yes that's a thing.

If you are in Yilan and want to help, you can go to the Boulangerie Française bakery, ask for Jenny. She is very transparent with her doggie bills and you can be one of those people who monthly helps her pay for taking care for all the strays' food and medial expenses. Likewise, you can visit the kind people at 莉丰慧民V  臉書官網 and buy some of their products that also goes into taking care of strays. Or if you have the space and time, you can just take home a stray.

Next month are 2 holidays weekends (10/10 and Moon Festival) and any other time I'd be planning a short stint somewhere, Japan, Korea like last year. Now, having these wild dogs, who love chasing flying squirrels and scaring wild pheasants, these dogs have domesticated me. I'm more of a homebody now than ever.

RESOURCES and NEWS:
http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aftr/201701140009.aspx
List of animal shelters in Taiwan
http://news.pts.org.tw/article/352826
AIR 宜蘭縣動物權利
Humane Yilan
莉丰慧民V  臉書官網
Taiwan Unofficial Animal Shelter List

The Art of Summer

Over the summer we were fortunate enough to catch a couple of world class exhibitions as well as our local gallery.

"Day Walker" at the Yilan Museum of Art, mid June

I waited patiently for summer vacation and the end of school to take my kid to the National Palace Museum to catch the Musee D’orsay exhibit in July. We went during the work week but it was still so crowded. Tickets were about 700 NT  total and afterwards we walked around the adjacent garden and then had pizza near Shilin MRT station. It was a rare Taipei day trip.

Musee D'orsay exhibit at the Nat'l Palace Museum

The exhibit from the infamous French museum included 69 iconic masterpieces from artists such as Cezanne, Monet, Van Gogh, Millet, Renoir and Gauguin. The most moving works for me were Renoir's "Young Girls at the Piano" as it reminded me of my recently deceased niece with my daughter. The painting always did remind me of them, even when they were just toddlers at my parents' piano (my daughter was blond then). My daughter mentioned it, she knew. 

In my mid 20's living in Capitol Hill Denver I had this calendar of these same masterpieces that I framed and hung around my apartment. I've been to the famous museums of Madrid, Amsterdam, London, Berlin, to the Louvre, but that was so long ago, when I was 18 or 20 years old. I was so grateful to bend the knee to these classics in person, especially Millet's Shepherdess which was always a personal favorite. The colors in person, the lighting can't be appreciated in a replica photograph.

First installation of the Imaginarium exhibit

When we were in Singapore in early July, we enjoyed a guided tour with a Swedish expat who had been in Singapore for 25+ years at the Singapore Art Museum. They were having an exhibit called "Imaginarium" featuring several up and coming SE Asian artists which were quite interactive. My kid liked the remote control wheeled paintbrushes that were linked up with students all over the world.

Last room of the Imaginarium

It was because of our Swedish guide that we just happenstanced upon the "Life is a Heart of a Rainbow"exhibit from Yayoi Kasuma at the National Gallery Singapore. I had no idea she was in town. We changed plans and headed there on foot immediately.

The queen of avant-garde had this all encompassing, colossal exhibition spanning 70 years from her post WW2 early works until recent pieces/installations from this year. It was astounding. It was multiple mixed medias, film, video, sculpture, lighting, music, she even recorded some haunting song she sung in Japanese, playing over and over in a video room.  We enjoyed several of the interactive installations where you'd have to stick your head into a cube and using mirrors, see yourself inside these psychedelic kaleidoscopes. Of course I knew Kasuma's circle obsessions, her spotty universe, and those gigantic canvasses were just brilliant. Yet I really loved her pumpkins and her phallic fascination as a women, trying to make sense of that in a political and intimate way. There was a room for adults only during her 1960's anti -war, nude photographs. My kid indignantly waited outside, craning a neck out of curiosity.

 We waited in line for about twenty minutes,  two by two to go into the Infinity Mirrored Room's Gleaming Light of the Souls installation. They kicked us out after a minute, but it was basically imagining what it would be like to be in Kasuma's brain. It was dark and spotted colored lights absolutely floating all around us. I felt dizzy. 

We had a little time to kill before our High Tea at the Raffles Hotel and admired the permanent exhibits on the first floor of Singaporean artists from the past. It was excellent. It was better than a history book to see life under British colonialism from the point of view of the Chinese.

Kasuma in person

I'd like to think the summer had some kind of positive influence on me. I recently bought some art supplies and started sketching landscapes of my new living quarters and will work up the nerve to delve in watercolors which had always been so scary for me. There was a time I used to draw and paint and I miss it. Beholding these masters' treasures filled the void. 

Yilan Museum of Art in June

In the meantime, (of working up the nerve to paint again) the Yilan Museum of Art as of today began a new exhibit, "The Landscape of Taiwan," ink paintings by the educator/politician Huang Kuang-Nan 黃光男. Admission is free for Yilan residents and the adjacent cafe sells decent tea and sparse lunch dishes.

In June we caught the local exhibit, "Day Walker" at the Yilan Museum of Art across from Luna Plaza. The large blue landscapes, the rich verdent green trees on gigantic canvasses were my favorites. It was all mostly mountains which is my familiar safe place, my reoccurring childhood dream. I love to see artists sketchbooks, and they had several of the artist's (Li Zanheng) encased in glass. This museum is so underrated and never cited in the English speaking newspapers art exhibition weekly sections.