Why We Love Spring in Yilan (And You Should Too)

We lived in Tainan for six years which is on the opposite side of the island. In many ways, the climate is just as different. Tainan was wonderful in winter; sunny, dry, not very cold, but it really didn't have much of a spring. Summer comes on like a switch in the south. At least in Yilan, Spring really sticks around much more leisurely, giving us all a long breath between the winter monsoons and summer typhoons.

These are some of my favorite Springtime moments happening now in Yilan.

Morning Glories: I noticed mid-March all the wild morning glories blossomed. Everywhere. Along the roads, paths, in the fields, around the trees. It sure adds another layer to the visuals on my daily dog walks.

Purple Herons: Apparently, these herons only nest in Siapu下埔, Yilan on their migration NE to China.

Return of the Big Critters: The macaques behind my house also came back with the warmer weather, which makes me wonder where they go in winter. They aren't the only ones though; there is wild game. The little Formosan barking deer (Muntiacus reevesi/山羌), and wild boar are also back. An old man (friend of my landlady's mom) came to my house yesterday as I was going to work, and told me he was hunting for deer behind my house, but accidentally caught a boar. I am pretty sure these are protected as they are endangered. Unfortunately, locals lay these traps everywhere and usually catch the neighborhood dogs, which is why I keep mine on a leash.

Clothes Can Dry: We've had quite the dry spell since the Lunar New Year; the river in front of my house slowly shrunk and is now a trickle, a small brook. Last week, about a dozen white herons were feeding on the tiny fish that got trapped in the shrinking pool and I've had to water my garden by hand, but the good news is, the clothes on my line, dried in a day.

Prime Camping: Now is the time for tents. It will be too hot in a month or two and perhaps wetter. There are some campsites nearby, but I suggest pitching a tent in a patch of green for free, which is what I saw this morning on my early dog walk. Here are some nearby spots in my neighborhood:

• 蜜蜜雞地, 264宜蘭縣員山鄉坡城路90號, 03 923 0761
• The Spooky Camping Site 山水幽谷營地, 262宜蘭縣礁溪鄉匏杓崙路143號, 0933 985 196
• Mountain Dew 山上有水露營區, 262宜蘭縣礁溪鄉匏杓崙路150-8號, 0919 347 289

Planting Summer Melons: We have seedlings of red and yellow watermelon and cantaloupe in the garden. I can't wait for watermelon salsa and watermelon water! There's nothing more refreshing in summer (coconut water and sugarcane juice perhaps, but I can't grow or harvest those).

Will I grow gourds or bitter melon? I doubt it, my neighbors gave me more than I could use last summer.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie: The patch of green beside the street in front of my house is the ad hoc neighborhood "dog park". The winter monsoon sent most of these feral canine packs huddled somewhere undercover. The dry March has them all lazing out in the sun. My kid nicknamed this one pack the Motley Crew, and they are no fun when I'm walking my dogs, they are very aggressive. The elderly neighbors carry walking sticks/weapons on their daily dusk walks.

Green Expo 2018 3/31-5/13: This is the 19th year. I've only been to one Yilan Green Expo, while my kid has taken field trips every year. Yilan's previous politicians have been notorious for slowing down development for the sake of environmental preservation, so this festival is a product of that legacy. Its a venue for local agriculturalists, botanists, and crafters using local agricultural products to showcase their wares, while teaching kids (and grown-ups) about caring for the earth.  It really attracts the crowds on the weekends, buses of them-which can't be too good for the environment.

Spring in Taiwan is a rather short, sweet affair so I intend to savor it while I can. The countryside in Yilan, my front porch is the optimum locality to do just that.

What is the Grass? Flutes and snakes and Spring Magic

A child said, What is the grass? Fetching it to me with full hands...-Walt Whitman

Nest outside my office:Malayan Night Heron 黑冠麻鷺

 

Its Spring and Yilan is in a state of blissful,  aromatic renewal. Easter was last weekend, Children's Day and Tomb Festival are almost here. The big questions of the meaning of life sandwiched between two Spring Holidays.  This week was full of inconspicuous nuances. My daughter remarked how sometimes she feels so contented and awed by the mundane routine then most times unaware or too busy to notice it. I felt the same, sitting around our airy, cozy kitchen astounded how we have everything we need.

Divine Providence has come through again yesterday in the form of two answered prayers. My child has been pining for a flute for the past year and for a snake for even longer. Like a 2nd birthday she got both just hours apart.

First was the flute. We dashed to the home/studio of her new music teacher before my TRX class.

"She's a natural!"

At the Yamaha music store they only have new, silver flutes for 10,500 NT. Influenced from my childhood, I came with the  parental philosophy that kids borrow an instrument when they start. She has got to earn a new one right? So I bought a used one on eBay and got totally ripped off, the costs of repair would cost the same as the new Yamaha.  The classes they offered there at Yamaha were a serious rip-off, at four times a month for 2800NT and their teacher wasn't even available when we were. So we waited and prayed. My daughter was not amused. I told her not to get mad that this in itself is an answered prayer, something is about to happen.

Her music teacher at her elementary school had a used silver Pearl for 10,000 and we brought it home. Finally at the thought of paying so much,  I started asking the mothers of her classmates and found this nice lady near Yilan University basically within walking distance of my house. We got a new silver flute for 4500 NT and classes are 8x a month for 2000. I am so excited for her, wind instruments are her passion. She wants to play for a symphony someday so she says and why not?

When one of the trainers at my gym, (and the entomologist of Beetle Forest) brought in his albino boa it was love at first sight (for her). Finally a snake connection, as the pet stores here either didn't have much selection or were too expensive.

She hounded him for a snake which he gets through one of his scientist friends. I kept on putting off the snake purchase for as long as I could. And then at the end of last semester with her straight A's, it seemed only fitting that she be rewarded and he was more than willing to find a nice young (small one).

So after Chinese New Years we have been missing each other at the gym until the past week when he had indeed bought her a snake.




 Last night we brought home the still sexless boa my daughter named Medusa. Within 5 minutes of bringing her home I got bit! I draw the line at handling mice and "Snake Dude" offered to buy them for us, but its Z's responsibility. Tomorrow after we pick up her girlfriend for a play date I will let them feed her!

Medusa says hello to my hand

Spring in Yilan: New Developments and Hair Experiments Gone Wrong

It's funny, every Spring like clockwork, like a migratory water fowl I get this itch, inner antsiness where I want to move or change jobs. I often would scan job ads or flight deals for pleasure. This Spring I was utterly void of unsettledness. The out of the blue job invitation from Taitung sort of provided a short spat of turbulence, but in the end I settled for remaining contented in Yilan.

However, my Spring wasn't all inner collectiveness and tranquility. Its starting to get really warm and I've been meaning to get a hair cut for the upcoming summer. This has building up and then my Trickster manifested last Saturday morning. I thought to myself, "How hard could it be to give myself bangs?" Its friggin' harder than it looks- well looks like I indeed gave myself bangs. Then my neighbor came over and decided to help, I handed over the scissors as she cut away more. Needs to grow in a few weeks before it looks um, normal. It looked like a Cleopatra wig.

Bad Cleopatra wig

I should of stopped when I had the chance. But feeling like it couldn't get much worse, what the hell, I decided to cut it shorter. This time I actually went to a professional. I think it was the same man who trimmed it before and did a decent job. However this time he literally chopped it in 5 minutes, it was uneven, I had long bits still. I got what I paid for, a 100 NT (3 bucks USD) cut outside Carrefore! 

After the chop, Z is trained to open up my bottle and pour me my ale

The damage is done. It will grow. Until then I drowned my sorrows in (a single) Canadian beer and copious amounts of onion rings at Piggies Bar. Z says I look like the KGB agent in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, she had me repeat ,"Hello Dr Jones" with a terrible Russian accent until I had to put my foot down. Its ok, I had the first laugh. Everything is temporary, right? 

Beyond the mane, just smile anyways

Besides the state of my hair, life is good! At least that's what I thought Tuesday afternoon, laying in my hammock, relaxing until it was time to teach a yoga class, then tutor a junior high girl in my home. Later that night I and took my twice a week TRX class with my hottie trainer. Today I started teaching my now Wed and Fri afternoons of just Art and PE to kindy kids with great English. Easy money, super fun, at a superb school for a fantastic boss! I feel so blessed. I have a fitness community, I enjoy my work, I started juicing consistently every morning the past 2 weeks. It's all rainbows and unicorns at the moment.

Lazy lady hair

Another reason to gloat is this weather. For the past month or two, its sunny mornings, even sweaty hot 90F around 11, then something about lunchtime, like a switch, it cools down. Clouds roll in from the mountains and soften the sun, there's a breeze from the ocean, sometimes a shower cools it off. Everyday I feel lucky to be here. I was forewarned how rainy and bleak Yilan weather is, but its just my style! Fresh and smelling sweet. It will be miserably hot soon enough, until then, enjoying perfection, which is a long, luxurious Spring.

Consider the Lilies and New Beginnings

Lanterns, CNY holiday, Old Bagan, Myanmar 2014

Lantern festival was last week, formally closing the Chinese New Year festival and Friday the rain stopped after weeks of gloom, so it finally feels like Spring! (Reminds me of George Harrison's Here Comes The Sun).

 I have started my new morning job at a Canadian owned kindergarten just down the road from me near the Sports Park. I am going to start riding my bike in this lovely weather once I buy a lock. I should mention I applied to 2 editing jobs in Taipei before the CNY holiday. I haven't heard from the one, but the other I did hear through the grapevine that they gave it to an under-qualified white, 24 year old dude. I wasn't a top contender, they had a qualified American Asian woman with a 4.0 from Berkley, and they gave the job to him. (Shaking my head in disgust).

We also started going to a church in Loudong, they have English translation and I can't tell what denomination is it which is a good indication to me. ( In the paraphrased words of Peter Tosh, "Denomination is segregation"). It's indubitably a joyous vibe, quite a lot of aboriginal tribes come down from the mountains make up the congregation. Z actually loves Sunday school, which she hated in Tainan. I don't know if she is just older or in more a receptive place, but she certainly can't wait to go. She loves being with the aboriginal children.

A happy dolphin greets everyone at her school entrance

My daughter started at her new local school which is a 5 minute walk away. She absolutely loves it. It's a nice change to hear on a daily basis, "This was the best day ever!" Last semester at her prestigious and expensive bilingual school, it was constant stress, anxiety and her being the victim of bullying. Her previous class went through two different homeroom teachers in one semester to no avail. Managing them is problematic, managing the parents, not much better. Our neighbor, her former classmate said the new homeroom teacher (now #3) neither is handling them with any success.

Her new school and class are like night and day from last semester. Her new class is smaller, with again quite a few aboriginal kids, the campus is bigger, greener, more play time and a half day on Wednesday and Friday. She takes guitar and recorder classes, helps her teacher and classmates in English and to her delight her class grows their own little garden (now she wants to be a gardener or landscaper when she grows up). She pretty much is outside playing everyday, which hasn't happened as a student in Taiwan til now. It should be normal right? Having my afternoons free and not sticking her in an anchingban while I work makes a big difference in our time, in her well being and happiness.

Her first day at her new school

During the gloom of the weather I also felt a bit discouraged. After not working in February and post Chiang Mai trip, I was disheartened at my lack of funds and lack of future funds. Its a bit scary having to plan on living on half of my previous salary, when I was already pretty much living paycheck to paycheck while saving for the next trip, blowing that and starting from zero. But when you believe in Divine Providence as I do, then being at zero means being a prime candidate for receiving abundantly. I built up my inner spirit by realizing the closeness of Presence. I call on that same Christ power that can feed a multitude with a boy's small lunch, and this hope got me through a week or two of 'back of my mind' worry of if can I make it or not.

5 loaves and 2 fish feed 5000

Also therapeutic for me is volunteering at the local orphanage (Home of God's Love) on my free afternoons. There are about 9 babies from 7 weeks to 21 months and when they all wake at 2, its 3 of us quickly changing and feeding and then playing. They eat some solids/porridge at 3:30 and then I leave to pick up my daughter at school. I brought her once during one of her half days, she was like a fish out of water, babies so not her thing right now! I remembered how I always wanted to adopt, since I was a child and now that I'm 40, I can barely take care (financially) of myself and my daughter. I felt disappointed in myself. I had imagined that by this age I would of had my shit together. I had to stop comparing myself to how I thought I should of been and keep my eyes focused on my blessings which are more than sufficient. ("The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not lack-for anything!" Psalms 23)

What is getting us by are three weekly tutoring gigs. I went by a few kindergartens and anchingbans to see if they need an English teacher for an afternoon, but they don't. I hung up a few posters for teaching English and yoga, but havent heard anything yet. I just got a new University student, through my daughter's Tai Chi teacher so I am hoping she will recommend me to her friends. I'm not worried about it anymore. I actually have time to study Chinese (ya right) and catch up on reading. I certainly have been luxuriating in my yoga practice and daily visualizations.

This post became quite unintentionally ecclesiastical (Just say, "NO!" to religion) but one of my favorite sayings of Jesus really has been my mantra. He basically says to take a giant chill pill, stay present, and don't worry.