Not all fun and games...

Crowded, smelly subway cars are never great fun. Riding the subway in Seoul nearly always means just that. A mixture of various body odors and pungent smells from people being sandwiched together, forced to breathe their lunches and dinners on one another and rub themselves up next to you. When the subway stops, there's always the hope that the crowds will disperse. In fact, this is when the little, old ladies grab hold of a nearby shoulder or an arm of an unlucky bystander, to hoist themselves on the car, cramming their little, bony bodies into the sea of passengers. The only way to cope is to take a deep breath and try to block out the surroundings as much as possible. Yet, taking a deep inhalation often results in smelling stale kimchi on everyone's breath from their lunches and dinners.

The frequency of this scenario is as often as one rides the subway, yet it is such that it can be forgotten as soon as the trip comes to an end. Most days that is.

One particular day in December, the subway made an abrupt stop in between stations. An announcement was made, which was later translated for me. There was a scurry of passengers and everyone shuffled in their seats and pushed themselves noisily over to the window. What was the uproar and why was the train stopped? It soon became apparent. 'Tis the season to be jolly, for gift giving and celebration-- and 'tis the season for suicides.

A young man or woman had jumped in front of the train. A common reaction for those unable to cope with school exam results, loss of job, divorce, inability to pay one's bills-- whichever the case this particular individual was going through, it was later revealed that this suicide attempt was just that, an attempt. It didn't work. The person survived. It is difficult to say what the degree of damage done was, both physically and mentally, but to be a witness of such an event was unfathomable until it actually happened.

The rate of occurrence is so high, that episode was actually not at all surprising to the locals. They hovered and stared, snapped pictures on their cameras and cell phones, strangely wanting to document the entire, unpleasant incident.

The subway train eventually jolted forward, onwards to the station where passengers were free to board and depart the train as needed. That individual is either somewhere out there, or not-- and is either on a path to recovery, or not. The others have photographs of the incident and have gone about their daily lives and have shared the story with their friends and families, or not. The subway train will keep moving forward from station to station, on schedule, until the next incident occurs.

snippity snip

After a year of travel prior to my first arrival in Taiwan, and having not paid a visit to a hair salon during that whole time, my tresses were in need of a good shape up.

One would think this wouldn’t be such a great task due to the fact that there are more hair salons lining the streets of Taiwan than there are sheep in New Zealand, but this proved to be more of a challenge than I anticipated. Printing off an English-Chinese vocabulary list to show the hairstylist was really my best chance of trying to communicate my wishes to her, and coupled with several magazine photos of the look I was going for, gave me the impression that everything was going to run smoothly. This was clearly not the case. She seemed to believe that everything was indeed under control. I was not so sure, but I was too far involved in the situation for me to take my leave.

I was roughly escorted to a seat in front of a mini movie screen playing a Taiwanese soap opera, and served cup of hot fruit tea. The lady cupped some rubber elf-like pieces over my ears, and began pouring the dye on my hair. Combing it roughly, and smearing and pasting the dye in my hair for what seemed like decades. Eventually I was wrapped up tightly in plastic wrap, and urged to sit still for an infinite period of time. Though I felt a little like leftover food in a ziplock bag, I didn’t mind at this so much. The Taiwanese soap opera was getting juicy.

After about an hour, my head was burning from the chemicals, and the TV program was now “Let’s Talk in English”. Without meaning to complain, I was not all that interested in learning about words that rhyme with “cat”, so I was relieved to see my hairstylist return. She poked at my head for a moment, un-wrapped the plastic wrap, and guided me over to the sink to rinse my hair. At that point I got one of the best and most invigorating scalp massages I’ve ever had, working every single pressure point and almost putting me to sleep.

When awoke from hair washing bliss and was back in my chair, she proceeded to work out the knots in my hair with a fine tooth comb. This was probably not the best option for my thick curly mane, but due to the language barrier we had, I just let her continue as she wished. Later she pulled out not one, but two dryers, and began to dry my hair. I had expected to get a hair cut as well. Shouldn’t my hair be wet? I signed to her in the attempt to ask her about this, and from what I was able to understand, she assured me it would be fine. Alright, no problem. She spent over an hour drying my hair and styling it with the flat iron. I know I have thick hair, but it shouldn’t really take quite this long! At several moments I thought I might take the iron from her hands to complete the task myself, but I suppose this would have been rude. She seemed to know what she was doing, but was simply taking a very long time to do so.

When she seemed fairly satisfied with my straight hair, she rubbed some goo on her hands and then onto my hair, to straighten it some more perhaps. I was a little curious about the hair cut that was apparently coming soon, and was also questioning her dye job. It seemed that my hair colour hadn’t changed a whole lot since I first walked in the store--if at all. Just then, out came the scissors. Alongside the scissors was a razor blade and comb-like-scissors. She took the razor and immediately started sawing away at my hair. Working quickly this time, she alternated between the various tools in her hand, and cut away. She was cutting and sawing my hair from every angle. Was this really a trim? I decided the best thing to do was to close my eyes, and just surrender.

After some time, I felt brave enough to open them. Now there was a new lady working on my hair. The flat iron was out for a second time, as apparently they were not satisfied with how straight my hair was. Now perhaps it was indeed the lighting, but I was unable to see any sign of colour on my hair. I had to voice my concern.

“You happy with hair?” one of the girls asked me.

“Uh, well...I don’t see any of the highlights you put in”.

“Yes, yes. You’re hair too black before. Very subtle. Hard to see” she responded.

“Okay, yes…but I asked for colour, and clearly it didn’t work”.

“Yes, hmm…okay…one minute please”. She went away for a moment, and returned with a full length mirror and a big plug in lamp. She hooked up the lamp and plugged it in, then set it so the bulb was directly over my head.

“Okay, now you see? You see highlight? Look very, very closely. Very beautiful. More natural” she said.

“I’m sorry, I don’t see anything” I told her. “You see, with light…there…beautiful highlight” she said as she ran her fingers through my hair.

“Well, yes, I see a hint of colour…perhaps if I had a magnifying glass…”.

“Ahh, you see?” she said, “very nature”.

“The thing is”, I began, “I don’t reckon I will be carrying around a big floor lamp when I’m walking around outside in order to show my highlights…” I told her.

“Oh, but this is like the sun, or the moon!” She seemed very pleased with herself.

“Listen, thank you very, very much… but I am not really happy with this style. You must see that the colour didn’t work…yes?” They all looked very puzzled and sympathetic, probably completely unsure of how to handle the situation.

“Okay, we fix for you now”.

“Thank you” I began, “but I’ve already been in here for close to six hours…I think it best that I go home now, maybe another day”.

“Okay, well you come next time. We fix for you. No pay today.”

“Thank you, I appreciate that”.

So, after six painstaking hours of being glued to the seat in the Taiwanese hair salon, I left there looking as Chinese as I’ve ever looked. Black hair from my own previous dye job, ironed flatter than a piece of paper, tapered and layered into a jagged point down my back, and gelled tightly to my head. Not that there was anything wrong with this look, or with me looking slightly Asian upon leaving the salon, but when you have hair that’s naturally more like a lion’s mane and it’s been styled to resemble something a little more like Astro Boy, there’s a little bit of a shock factor involved. I decided the only thing to be done was to shrug it off, after all, hair does grow back. I waltzed back home, grabbed some scissors, summoned my brother and had him chop off the remaining shaggy mullet that had recently been adorned on me. Next time I will skip the 6 hours at the salon, and go straight to my brother or another. Of course, this would mean giving up the funny little elf ear cups, the juicy Taiwanese soap opera, and the big floor lamp that apparently resembles the sun.

the land of the far east...as experienced almost 4 years ago.

My first emergence into the land of the Far East, was on a stopover on a flight over to the land Down Under. At the time, I had no conception of the impression this continent would have on me.

After scrimping and saving all of my pennies from my summer job until I had enough for a plane ticket and not much more, I sealed the deal and purchased my seat on a flight to Australia. I could barely contain my excitement. No other plans were set for the moment I actually arrived in this incredible continent. I had not even enough dollars to carry me through more than a couple of weeks, before finding a job would be an absolute necessity. No itinerary was determined, no accommodation booked. Although I had never been backpacking before, and had never ventured off on my own in this capacity, I figured all of these things would fall into place when I stepped off the plane. For the time being, I knew I was due to make my first stop after departing Canada, in Asia. I was off to pay a visit to my brother, and Australia was still in the slightly distant future. First things first, I was Taiwan bound.

I had been given brief, yet specific instructions as to what to do fresh upon arrival. After clearing security, I had to find a cash machine to try to take out at least $1000 NT dollars, or about $30 Canadian. Then, I was on the lookout for the bus terminal, in search of the next bus headed to Taichung. I was told to get off at “SOGO” when I reached Taichung, and I was advised the best way to ensure this, was to repeat the name over and over until someone understood my request. I’m sure I was actually understood perfectly well the first time, and I probably just looked like a paranoid lunatic with my unceasing repetitions of the word, but I was not interested in taking any chances in this strange and foreign land.

After safely boarding the bus, I relaxed in one of the massive, reclining arm chairs complete with massage controls, a TV, and the ability to play video games and watch movies. Within minutes of sitting down, a lady came by with blankets, water, and a snack. This was better service than my expensive plane ticket, all for $200 NT dollars! This two hour journey that I had been dreading, after the fifteen hours I had already spent getting to this point, was going to be a lot more luxurious than I had previously thought.

I entertained myself with Tetris and bad re-runs of Keanu Reeves movies (are there any good ones?) while getting a full body massage. Yet I must have fallen asleep, as suddenly I had everyone on my bus shouting at me “SOGO, SOGO, SOGO”. Clearly this was where I was to take my leave.

Sure enough my brother was waiting there for me, in front of SOGO, a large department store. He was standing next to his fancy, blue and black motorcycle. I couldn’t quite recall my brother even having a driver’s license, but based on his apparent confidence, I wasn’t too concerned. He seemed to have enough knowledge to drive, or so I assumed, hence it was probably fine. There were about 500 other bikes and scooters all lined up next to his; I’d never seen a sight quite like this.

I had grown up in a neighbourhood close to Chinatown, in Toronto. Often enjoying a meal with my family at the local restaurants and shopping at the Chinese food store, so despite the obvious differences between Canada and Taiwan, even upon first glance there were things that appeared strangely familiar. It was just like Chinatown in Toronto, only...it never ended. Signs on stores and posts with unrecognizable words and sayings, names of streets were illegible to me, the eclectic sounds of the whole world around me had just drastically shifted from mundane and very ordinary in my mind, to wonderfully exotic and alien, in less than 24 hours. I felt like an interloper in an unknown land.

We somehow managed to fit both my brother and I, along with my massive backpack that contained my life for the coming year on his motorcycle and zipped off down the street. Mid-way he passed me a paper-thin helmet with a broken buckle, that looked like not much more protection than a peanut shell.

“Here, take this. It won’t do much for you, but at least you’re wearing one” he told me. “But you aren’t.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s okay. I’m used to driving here.”

It didn’t quite make sense to me that being “used to” driving would make any such difference in the event of a traffic accident, but given the fact that my helmet resembled a ping pong ball, I am sure we’d both be in quite a snag should anything happen. Come to think of it, it seemed everyone around us was also wearing ping pong balls on their heads, if they were wearing anything at all. I guessed that there wasn’t much concern for safety, despite the traffic situation being absolute pandemonium, at best.

Eventually making it back to my brother’s house, I breathed a sigh of relief. That 2 hour bus ride and 2 minute motorcycle ride were enough to wear me out! Though this was only the beginning of the many wild and wonderful adventures to be had!

Hello, and welcome.

Hi, and welcome to my brain. Well, a small part of it anyway. The part of my brain that likes to write. I didn't ever believe myself to be person with a blog. I have dozens of scribbled in notebooks, inked up napkins, and files on my computer with half-written stories, fully-written stories, pages with lyrics and poems, ideas for plays and projects, songs and alphabet letters running through my head...well, you get the point. I love to write. However, I need a goal, a plan, and a means to organize these thoughts in some capacity, and get it out of the neurological centre of my body, and out on paper... or, well...on virtual paper to be precise!

The first several posts will most likely be old pieces I've resurrected from years past, when my thoughts, feelings, observations and perceptions were perhaps different from the way they are today-- though also perhaps many remain unchanged. Either way, please sit back and enjoy a slice of life or a few-- in no particular order.