JSOTF-P*

...doesn't get a lot of press, but there's been some as of late. Wired Magazine's Danger Room recently posted that the Task Force recently suffered 2 servicemembers killed. That's bad news.

But in reading the post, I also discovered that JSOTF-P has a blog (and right here on Blogger to boot!). You can read here about members of JSOTF-P helping Filipinos in Manila in the wake of the terrible flooding they have had recently.

Archives on the blog only go back to the first part of 2009, so you won't find anything about me or the fine men and women I took there in 2006 - 07.

GJS

*Joint Special Operations Task Force - Philippines

Quote of the Day

"What is the English word for the mother of the egg?"

-- Dr. Tomasz R. Szymczynski, of Poland's Adam Mickiewicz University Institute of Political Science and Journalism, when struggling to recall the American idiom about the chicken and the egg (Dr. Szymczynski is currently guest lecturer for my Taiwan Government and Politics course and is comparing European democratization and democratization in Taiwan).

About one step short of 5 miles...

Longest run in a long time this morning...should sleep well tonight after this one!

Garmin Connect -
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GJS

W

NU 55, ULL 0. Tough day in Lincoln for the visitors. Nice job, 'Skers!

GJS

Halftime

Nebraska up 34 - 0 at the half...but the stats aren't really that lopsided. Hopefully we can keep it going in the 2nd half.

GJS

Tunnel Walk

...can even produce "chicken skin" from 7500 miles away and only on audio! (web radio) Looking forward to listening the remainder of today's contest against the Louisiana - Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns.

Here's a link to the 2009 Tunnel Walk video (YouTube).

GJS

This week's big Nebraska football game (300)

It's a big deal - today's football game in Lincoln marks 300 home games in a row sold out. I think I can remember attending some games about 15 years ago that were about 200 deep in the streak. Obviously, with such a long streak of sold-out football games, it is something that is mentioned at every game by the announcers. Anyhow, read more about it at the link below.

Nebraska vs. Louisiana-Lafayette Game Week - Huskers.com?Nebraska Athletics Official Web Site

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It's a night game in Lincoln this week, so we'll be able to listen along with the action here in Taiwan.

GJS

My latest run

A modest run, in the grand scheme of things, but in light of the fact that I have been slowly working back up to ANY running since injuring my knee in early June, this is not bad! It is also not easy...

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GJS

Garmin Connect - Activity Details for Big Sur Marathon 2009

Found a new way to upload data from my GPS device. Here is a historical upload of my performance in this year's Big Sur Marathon.

GJS

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One month ago today...

View from entrance of National Sun Yat-sen University, Siziwan

...we arrived in Taiwan. We have enjoyed it so far!

GJS

The Real First Day

I think yesterday didn't really count, because I didn't have any classes. Today (Tuesday) I went to three, so this really felt like the first day.

Here's a short video I recorded after I finished my second class at lunch time.

After spending a couple hours in the library mining the school's e-journal databases for assigned articles to read for the classes I had in the morning and grabbing a quick bite to eat in the quad, it was off to my first class in Chinese. Yes, both AM classes (a couple of the "optional" ones that I wrote about yesterday) were in English, and thus were quite easy for me to keep up with.

Total contrast with what I experienced in the afternoon class. I was picking up maybe 25 - 30% of the Mandarin that was being spoken, not because it was too fast (I don't often have a problem making out what people are saying anymore due to speed) but simply because of the content, the vocabulary. If I knew a lot of the words being used in the class before, I have forgotten them. It was an eye-opener for me - this is not going to be easy. But the professor was very gracious to me. She told me that right now I am doing fine if I am picking up on 20 - 30%, and that I will eventually build up to where I am getting most everything.

Sometimes our subconscious can be funny. After I walked out of class this afternoon, for some reason, a very fitting song was playing in my head. It was Weak and Powerless by the band called A Perfect Circle. The title says it all - 'nuff said.

I knew that the Chinese listening would be hard, but I haven't really come up with what seems to be a satisfactory answer for how to deal with it. I have considered attempting to audio record all my classes in Chinese so I can go back and review them later, but I fear that this method will be far too time intensive, not to mention that it is likely that the audio quality on whatever recording device I use will be substandard when compared to listening through my ear to the live class in session.

Perhaps it is just a matter of getting used to listening to several hours straight of Chinese, graduate-level Chinese. These classes are no joke! In the US, a 3 credit class would meet 2 - 3 times a week to get to 3 hours of class for a week, but here, they just knock it all out at once! I guess that is good in that you only have to show up to a given class once a week.

In summary, I found all three classes today to be interesting, and further they were interesting in direct correlation with how much (or little) I could understand what was being said.

Tomorrow's schedule is much like today's, except both classes I will attend are ones that I need to take. A course taught in English in the morning, then an all-out assault in Chinese in the afternoon. I hope each day and week it gets a little bit easier.

Finally for today, I was invited to attend (token American?) the grand re-opening of the Sun Yat-sen America Center (SYSAC) at my school later this week. No, I'm not really the only American here, there are several others, but in the grand scheme of things, there are not many of us at NSYSU. Anyhow, I am planning to attend to see what this SYSAC is all about. More to follow after the fact.

GJS

Graduate School, Day 1

Monday was a nice day today in Kaohsiung. I took the photo above while strolling downtown at lunch. Blue skies, palm trees, aaahhhhhh. Soak it in!

It was also the first day of school. I wish I had a lot to talk about with regard to school, but my first class isn't until tomorrow, so I will have to wait to weigh in at any length. I can mention a few things that I have noticed thus far, though.

-Even though classes started today for the fall semester, I am still not registered for classes. This is not congruent with what I am used to - I would have had classes selected and locked in ages ago at an American school, not to mention tuition paid, etc. Nope, none of that has been done here, although I was able to finally pin down exactly when I will be able to register: next week, Monday through Wednesday. This week I can go to whatever classes I want, see if I like them, then register next week for the ones I want to take. Sounds pretty nice, huh? Don't like a class? Don't take it! Unfortunately, it isn't quite that nice or easy for 1st semester graduate students. My classes this semester are pretty much proscribed to meet certain requirements forthe program. Here are the classes I plan to take:

-Philosophy of Social Science (required)

-Taiwan Government and Politics (required)*

-Research Methods of Political Science (required)

-International Relations

* Taught in English

All are three credit classes, meaning I will have 12 credit hours, which is quite a bit for graduate school. Not to mention that three of four classes will be taught in Chinese! You probably noticed that the first three classes are required. The final one, international relations, is my chosen major, so I think even though I believe it is not technically required, I do have to take 4 international relations-related courses for my major. So in other words, it would be a good idea for me to take it. Plus it will probably be the most interesting of my classes this semester (although I bet the Taiwan government class will be pretty interesting, too). The other two? (research methods and philosophy of social science) I predict these will likely be a pair of "snorers." Required snorers, though, so they shall be taken.

Tentatively, I will only have classes on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this semester, making every weekend a 4-day weekend (nice!). My first required class is international relations, which will be tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon. Then on Wednesday I will have Taiwan government and politics and the research methods of political science course. Thursday's class will be the philosophy of social science class.

In addition to these, I think I am going to "audit" (this week only, during the course "shopping" period) two or three other classes that look interesting that I may take at a later time. These are U.S. Foreign Policy in the 20th Century, U.S., P.R.C., Taiwan and Taiwan Strait Security, and National Security and Crisis Management.

I need 39 credits and to write a thesis to get my master's degree here. Today is the first step of many more to come.

-Books. I stopped by the university bookstore last week to see what books they had for the classes I figured I was going to need to take. There were pretty much no books fitting the description of the ones listed for my classes, so it should be interesting to see what is said about the required books when I go to the classes this week. I expect to hear, "You're on your own to get the books." I wonder if I can get some of them on Kindle? That would make my life easier!

GJS

John's latest artwork

From Sunday's church (front and back this time):

GJS

Quote of the Day

"I want to eat the sea creature."

--John, upon seeing the whole, unpeeled shrimp in my seafood ramen at lunch today

'Skers back in action, Taiwan fan club UA*...

The Big Red are fixin' to take to the field again in L-town against Arkansas State. I *heard* from a little birdie that last week BOTH of my brothers went to the win over Florida Atlantic - how do they rate? Hope it was fun, hope you both ate lots of Fairbury® Brand hot dogs, yada yada yada.

Last week the Husker Nation Taiwan Chapter was in full force, but this week, somebody in Lincoln forgot to consult the schedule of loyal fans 6,000 miles away, so kickoff goes at about 2 AM local time here...love the Huskers, not gonna do it. I will look at the highlights tomorrow morning.

GJS

(Photo courtesy Dave S., May 2007, John with "Gramps" S.)

* Unauthorized Absence

Civilization (II)

Here's a few photos for Niall. If you come visit, you won't starve - they've got Ruth's Chris here in Kaohsiung.

It's situated right across the road from the Kaohsiung City Council Building, downtown. I can only imagine how expensive their prices probably are here, as that they are a bit pricey even in the States.

I found their website: http://www.ruthschris.com/Steak-House/10035/Kaohsiung/

GJS

Taipei trip

I'm going to try something new this post. I'm going to try to make extensive use of my Flikr page for the photos I want to include because it is easier to upload pictures to it than it is to this blog. There will still be images here, don't worry! But just not 20 of them, hopefully. Here goes.

Tuesday I made a solo trip to Taipei to meet with two other Olmsted Scholars, one a veteran of the program from about 10 years back, and one who is a currently in the program, a year ahead of me. It was an informal meeting over lunch, just informational, but very useful to me. Anyhow, since I was making the trip all the way up the island, I decided to make a day of it and take in some of the sights along with visiting with my colleagues.

I arrived in Taipei about 9 AM. Here is a video clip I made just after my arrival laying out my goals.

When I finally decided where I was going to go before lunch and went there, I made this video.

I was blown away by the scale of this monument. Simply huge!

Many more photos and video from the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial are available here.

After that, I met with my colleagues for lunch at Din Tai Fung, a restaurant on Yongkang Jie. It was delicious. We had a variety of Shanghai-style dumplings, vegetables, and soup. While we ate, we discussed various issues surrounding the Olmsted Scholar Program and the more seasoned Scholars offered me advice, were that they in my shoes (just arrived in-country).

After lunch, it was off to Taipei 101, one of the tallest buildings in the world. For whatever reason, I like to visit very tall buildings. They fascinate me. I had been wanting to visit this building since I learned that it was in Taiwan and that I would be coming here to study. Here is the video segment I recorded upon arrival at the building.

There is a 5-level shopping mall in the building, jam-packed with high-end designer boutique shops and expensive restaurants. There seemed to be quite a few Japanese restaurants, in particular. None of these were my objectives, though - bookstore, anyone? The mall has a large bookstore called Page One. It did not disappoint. It featured a section of books that you wouldn't find in a bookstore in China:

After browsing the shelves for a while and not finding anything I couldn't live without (plus, I am trying to make the transition from traditional books to Kindle-based books and periodicals, so I didn't want to purchase more old-style books to derail that effort), it was time to head to the top of the building.

The tickets to go to the top are a tad expensive (NT$400, or about US$12), so I was glad that I was by myself. After a short wait, I was on the way to the top inside the fastest elevator in the world.

Once at the observatory on the 89th floor, I shot quite a lot of photos of the view (quite spectacular), most of which look about like this one:

Many more photos and my narrative video from inside the observatory can be found here.

There were a bunch of art displays inside the observatory. Here is one piece that jumped out at me. What do you think of it?

Then I found out I could go up 2 floors higher, to 91, and go outside. Money! More video followed. This video is entails me walking the entire circumference of the observation deck (I think it was truncated somewhat, as that its length exceeded the maximum upload parameter of 1 min 30 sec). WARNING: if your speakers are turned up, I recommend you turn them down before opening this video. The wind noise and the harmonic wind-driven vibration of the personnel safety bars (to keep nutcases from jumping off) is quite loud and is at an annoying pitch.

After my time on the 89th and 91st floors, it was time to try to get back to ground level. Not so fast! First I had to see the 730 ton (!) tuned mass damper. My photos and video don't really do it credit, so if you are interested, read more about it and see more photos here. Basically, this thing keeps the building stable in high winds and during seismic activity.

Well, back on terra firma, my objective was to find another bookstore nearby, Eslite Books (sorry, they don't have an English language website). I had heard this bookstore was very big, but I was not prepared for what I found: a 6-floor behemoth that is not a pure bookstore along the lines of Borders or my favorite, Barnes and Noble, but a hybrid between a conventional bookstore and Ikea. Seriously, they have tons of other goods for sale besides books, things that will complement your reading lifestyle, apparently. I hate to admit it, but I met my match at this store - I did not have the stamina to browse the entire store. I completely lost track of time in the building, but my aching feet and growling stomach told me it was time to move on.

A (not so) quick ride on the Taipei Metro had me back where I had started at in the city, and I recorded this video as a summary of my day.

After 2 more hours of riding the high speed rail back to Kaohsiung, my day was not over. I decided to check out the Liuhe Night Market not far from where we live. Even though it is nearby, we had not yet had a chance to check it out. I had heard it was quite the spectacle, with many choice of foods and myriad goods for purchase. I wasn't hungry nor did I want to buy anything, just take a few photos. Here is the best of them:

More can be found here.

As always, all photos mentioned here and even those that aren't can be found on my Flikr page.

The Taipei trip was a long day, but a good one. I hope to go back to take in more of the city soon.

GJS

(Ha! Only 7 pictures here!)

Other activities this week, etc.

Let's do an update on our recent activities. Here goes:

On Friday evening, we went to the Dream Mall and took John to the amusement park on the roof.

Of course we found Thomas there!

Saturday morning, the movers brought our first wave of "stuff," including my regular desktop computer (I've been working off the back-up machine, the laptop, since late July). It's nice to have the computer I am accustomed to back and running, including the webcam - Skype me!

Let's do a little crude math to figure out how long it took for the "fast" shipment of goods to get here.

Jul 24 - movers take the shipment from our house in the US

Sep 5 (Sat.) arrival = 43 days (relatively fast in terms of shipment of household goods)

Our main shipment of goods has yet to *leave* the US, so no telling how much longer it will take to get that stuff. At least now we know what stuff we need to go buy - if there was something I was hoping was in the "fast" shipment that didn't show up yesterday, it's time to go out and buy a replacement!

On Saturday evening, we decided to head out Cijin Island, the piece of land that forms the outside part of Kaohsiung's harbor.

The Cijin Island Ferry - takes about 5 minutes to get out to the island

Kaohsiung city skyline from the harbor

View looking out the mouth of Kaohsiung harbor from the ferry

Along the main drag, "seafood street"

Some of the things that give "seafood street" its name

Deliberating over some Cijin Island xiao chi (small eats); in this case, kebabs of fruit and vegetables - delicious!

At the entrance to Tianhou Temple, the oldest temple in Kaohsiung

Curious grey sand beach, with the Taiwan Strait and queued freighters in the background

On the way home, we listened to a public music performance inside main subway station. Notice yet another example here of eye-pleasing public architecture in Kaohsiung (this is the "Dome of Light" inside the main station):

Here's a look at the same subway station, but from street level:

Now you can enjoy the music, too! (At least a ~30 second clip of it, along with video:)

We really like the Kaohsiung subway system.

Sunday - our "church shopping" continues, and we think we may have found a good one this week, unlike last week (not so hot). This one has a large congregation, bilingual worship services, and a robust children's ministry program. Here's a picture John colored today at Sunday school, just for you!

Congratulations to the Huskers on their season-opening football victory - see Huskerpedia here for all the details. I think this calls for a dip in the jacuzzi tub and a cold beverage.

Probably not one of these, though. Adult beverage, anyone? I have to sample all the Taiwanese beers to get the "lay of the land," you know? I'm still on my first brand, and there are several more to try. So much work, so little time...

As always, many, many more photos from these adventures can be found at my Flikr site here.

Only one week until classes start! I feel like I should be doing something to prepare...nahh!

GJS

Chinese character recognition at the Knox County Fair

Remember a while back I talked about having some non-sequential posts coming? It's time!

Let's turn back the clock about a month, to the 2009 Knox County Fair. This year's event took place from Aug 12 - 16, and we actually modified when we left Nebraska to come to Taiwan so that we could attend. It was a lot of fun, and I will write more about the fun everyone had another day, but today I want to start off with a look at something that shocked me - the prevalence of Chinese character tattoos on attendees of the fair.

Call me old-fashioned, but Knox County, Nebraska is not a place I expect to see this:

Since I hadn't done much in terms of Chinese in a good couple of weeks at that point, it took me a few moments to decode it, but here are the characters: 友人, yǒurén, meaning "friend." OK, I can understand this tattoo on this person, makes sense to me.

Then I saw this guy:

The first two pictures are of the left side of the back of his neck; the third photo is of the right side. The left character is 恶, è, meaning vicious or terrible, and the right one is 鬼, guǐ, which means ghost. Put them together and we have 恶鬼, èguǐ, or "vicious ghost." OK, this one also makes sense, some characters to put forth a fearsome or menacing message from a man. Interesting how we have a welcoming, happy message of "friend" from the woman and the opposite, "vicious ghost" from the man.

I was at the fair only a fraction of the time it was going on, and I saw two people with visible Chinese character tattoos. This says nothing about the people whose body markings are not visible in regular clothing. We can see from this small sample that a) tattoos are becoming more and more commonplace, and 2) people in Knox County, Neb. like the Chinese language.

Finally, this guy doesn't have any visible tattoos, in Chinese or anything else, but he is about the least-motivated looking person I have seen in a long time! OK, monitoring the bouncy house may not be the most exciting job on the midway, but come on!

"Get me out of Knox County!"

GJS

Husker Nation, Taiwan Chapter

We're far away, but not oblivious to the important events taking place in Lincoln right now - the start of another Nebraska football season! Fear not, we are listening online here. Only 10 minutes until kickoff versus Florida Atlantic. Go Big Red!

GJS

The Ball Pit

We recently learned that our building has a kid's play area, and John has taken quite a liking to it. (Big surprise, I know!) Today's video clip is of John enjoying the play area, including the ball pit.

GJS

Socks and a tile floor

Today's video is John having a good time pushing his big "train" (really a foot rest, but who's going to tell him?) back and forth in our apartment. Check it out!

GJS

Another sign of civilization (?)

Patrick, thought you might like this photo - came across this place while out walking last Sunday morning with John to try and find a newspaper. I wonder how much their cars cost in New Taiwan Dollars?

GJS

Tales from a public restroom and other recent exploits

Monday we went to the local post office to send our first piece of mail, ironically a reply to a jury summons for Barb in California (umm, not going to be able to serve on that jury, methinks it is a tad bit far to commute back and forth), and afterwards, John wanted to ride the train (subway), even though we were close to home. When we went down into the station, John told me he needed to use the bathroom, so we went into the public restroom, and here's what we found:

That's a pretty nice little restroom! We'd like to see more public facilities like that one.

John has also become quite proficient in stair-climbing and now almost always chooses to walk up the stairs when faced with an option of stairs or escalator. He is now big enough that he can step up one stair with each foot as he goes, alternating left and right legs up as he goes, instead of having to step up with one foot, then bring the other foot up to the same tread as the foot that just stepped up. The easy way to imagine this is that John can go up stairs just like an adult now, and he likes it; he doesn't have to go up the steps like a little kid any more. Now he likes to race Mom or Dad on the escalator as he goes up the stairs:

And when the adults get to the top, here is what they see:

Yes, that's right, that's John standing at the top, basking in his victory and PUSHING on the escalator hand rail in order to make it go faster! Mom and Dad are too slow for him!

On Tuesday we made a trip to the grocery to get some food items, and since where we shop is fairly close to where we recently discovered we will be going for medical care during our time in Taiwan, we decided to wrap several errands up into one by walking over to the hospital (seems that most medical care here, even routine treatments and appointments, is delivered at the hospital, not at a private doctor's office) to lay eyes on it and see what sort of things were around it. We discovered a Carrefour store (a French-owned retail store that carries pretty much anything you would find at a Wal-Mart or Target in the US), a Starbucks (pretty much the first one that I have seen in Kaohsiung that is not either inside the High Speed Rail Station (not even remotely close to where we live) or inside a Carrefour store. Yes, believe it or not, there are places in the world where Starbucks have not yet proliferated, and Kaohsiung is one of them. Alas, do not think that there are not many Western things available to us here - McDonalds, anyone?

These Ronald McDonald benches are like magnets for little kids - American ones, anyhow. John went right up to this last one with no prompting and crawled up on Ronald's lap.

At any rate, back to my discussion of today's trip. Between the subway stop and the hospital happened to be a really nice park.

John really enjoyed this park because it was shaded (the kid's play area at the park closest to our house is not shaded) and it had swings - he really likes swings. (Ditto on the swings - none at the park near where we live.)

The park also had some nice scenery. We saw this pagoda with laoren chatting in the shade:

There was also a public library and some artwork incorporated in with the footpaths:

From the 2 weeks I have now been here in Taiwan, it seems to me that the public infrastructure by and large is quite good, and what they have is nice to look at and well-designed, with one example being the footpaths above, and here are a few more:

Public artwork at "Urban Spotlight" in Kaohsiung Central Park

Central Park Subway Station

In case you missed it, yep, you're right, we try to put the boy to work when we can:

Here he is pulling the little cart we use to bring things back from our trips to the store. He likes to do things for himself and to be "really useful" like his favorite little playthings, Thomas and Co. We figure it is good for him to help out. Lord knows he is going to have to next year when his brother or sister comes.

Oh, and if you want to see more photos from the adventures mentioned in this post, please navigate here to enjoy them. I cherrypick the ones I want to use to tell my story here; it is but a representative sample of all the photos I take on any given day. I will try to put the preponderance of my pictures on the Flikr page so you can see more of us.

I'm going to try to get the webcam up and working now in case anyone wants to give it a shot sometime.

GJS