brief update in hsinchu, take one

Currently stuck in the dorm at the university in Hsinchu that Daniel's giving talks at this week. The typhoon that's brushing by Taiwan (projected to leave by tonight) has currently shut down the city. Declan woke up at 6am all tired and cranky and finally got lulled to sleep by Daniel's and my boring discussion about the recent Chick-fil-A bugaboo. He was extra tired from not being able to nap yesterday because people were hammering boards around the stores downstairs in preparation to shield their windows from the incoming storm. Turns out the wind ripped the boards apart and there are wood chips everywhere downstairs this morning when we ventured out to get breakfast for our demanding toddler. Daniel left for the office amidst the violent rain and wind because his officemate out-testeroned him by actually biking in from the latter's studio apartment about 15 minutes from campus.

So. The highlights of the trip to Taipei and now Hsinchu have definitely been about being able to meet up with family and old friends. In Taipei, I had dinner with my friend Yvonne, who I last physically saw in 2004 when we celebrated our undergraduate graduation together. We met up at a metro stop and walked together to the Hakka restaurant (really, a small eatery converted from a traditional Taiwanese-style house). The food was excellent and Declan ended up playing with the owner's two daughters in the part of the restaurant that the family lives in so that we adults got a chance to talk and catch up without Declan doing bodily harm to either himself or innocent dinner-eaters. Yvonne hasn't changed at all, from my perspective. She's still very cute, seemingly innocent yet quite mischievous (at one point, Daniel said one of the dishes was particularly good and Yvonne tried to trick him into believing it's rat meat.). Perhaps she seems a bit more mature now, with what sounds like a fairly regimented job that demands a lot of time. I envy being able to go to work, while she said that she had wanted to simply get married and stay home to mind the children. Funny how our places are completely switched, and both of us have to adjust our expectations to suit the other's desired kind of life.

In Hsinchu, I had lunch with my friend Deb and her husband. The last time I saw Deb was at her undergraduate graduation, in 2003. Yep, nine years ago.  Deb has changed a lot physically in how I remembered her, although in all other ways, she remains the same. She seems a lot frailer now than in college, as in Taiwanese girl-thin. She's pregnant and expected to be due three weeks before me. However, my arms are literally like twice the size of hers. I feel like a water buffalo next to her. She works at the same place as her husband, and expects to return to work after taking a two-months-long maternity leave. I think she's one of the most capable women I have ever met, and she's certainly been one of my role models in being confident while in college, and now.

Also, it was really special for me to be able to introduce Declan to my grandparents, who are in their late 80s, and witness my grandmother making Declan giggle by sneak-tickling his armpits.

I am reaffirmed in my absolute requirement for whatever city we live in long-term to have a good public transportation system. Taipei's metro system is a dream. Hsinchu's bus system is decent, given its concentration of sites to see in the city center.  Without these trains and buses, I am lost and made desperate by boring time with a hyperactive child.

Declan's been going through this phase (I hope it's a phase) where he absolutely refuses to let me help him with things. Like walking up or down steep flights of stairs, or sitting on the adult toilet, or getting dressed. Results vary from our yelling at each other in frustration to him falling (into the toilet, for example) and getting lots of scratches. It's super annoying listening to a toddler yelling "OWWWW" constantly while pointing to his self-inflicted wounds. At one point, I told him he deserved the pain. I know. What a horrible mother.

Oh no. The construction people are starting to get back to their drilling. Please, nooooo, spare my child. Spare my sanity.

so how does it feel...

... to be 30?

My husband asked me that yesterday while we were walking to Master Fung, a typical Taiwanese bakery constantly stocked with pastries not available anywhere else but Taiwan.

Well, in living about a week of this new decade so far, I feel mostly a desire to be at peace with everyone I've ever known.  Maybe because I feel like I'm truly an adult now, and need to be mature, and not be hung up about past slights be them big or small. I've wronged some people, and been wronged by some others, and now that my innate snarkiness and judgmentality seem less and less appropriate for someone who must depend on the grace of God daily, I want to be able to think kindly of others and not have them harbor anger or hurt when they think of me either.

To that end, I've been reflecting on relationships that might need mending, and am working on approaching the people thereof. Several of them are ex-boyfriends.  I am well aware that some of the people I reach out to would rather not have anything to do with me ever again, but at least it won't be because of my own hardness of heart.

People are important. Perhaps the most important subjects in this world.

good eats on my first day as a 30-something

I still get nausea and round ligament pain on a daily basis, but they don't seem to be of the around-the-clock, all-day-and-all-night variety anymore. This is a huge relief. I was remembering the farewell dinner Christy and Judy ate with us the night before we left Seattle. We were at this fabulous upscale pizza place, with freshly made pizzas topped with clams and prosciutto and a live band that Declan was simply amazed by. I had hardly eaten much of anything else all day long, because I was feeling so sick, and although I was recognizably hungry at the pizza descriptions, it was still hard for me to appreciate all the good food.

Now my appetite* is starting to return, and with a vengeance at times. The birthday lunch I just had was so perfect and immensely satisfying, and in retrospect, holy moley a lot of food compared to what I have been able to eat in the last three months. We went to one of the many small sidewalk eateries that are usually family-run. Thus far, I've only been able to eat a bowl of white rice or noodles drizzled with some meat sauce before I get full. Add a small plate of blanched water spinach or sweet potato leaves, and I might get a stomachache. But for today's lunch, I had a bowl of 肉燥飯(rice with marinated meat sauce), a plate of marinated cold pork liver slices, a plate of blanched and chilled bamboo shoot chunks with Japanese salad dressing, a plate of blanched and lightly salted sweet potato leaves with garlic, and a bowl of 貢丸湯 (soup with pork meatballs).

I didn't think I would be able to finish it all, but I did. It's a quintessential Taiwanese meal, and I couldn't have asked for more. My dad's planning to treat me to some yakiniku at a fairly upscale Japanese restaurant tonight. In truth, all I need is some Taiwanese small eats and an air conditioned room.  But it should be fun...I've never really had yakiniku before. The first new thing to experience as I begin my 30s.

*There are a lot of old wives' tales surrounding food preferences during pregnancies. When I was pregnant with Declan, I craved meat (in the form of corn dogs and Hawaiian pizza) and sweet things like chocolate (I usually don't care for candy whatsoever). This time, I've noticed that the few sweet things I used to like, such as flan, are just too sweet for my taste. Aside from liver (which I crave), I don't shun or love meat any more than normal. I mostly want to eat lots of dark green vegetables. My mom suggested these signs point to a girl. Hm.

the flesh is weak, the spirit is...weaker

Yesterday at 5:30am, I promptly awoke, slipped on the least amount of clothing I could wear without getting looks of public scandal, and went for a walk until the sun arose and the temperature swiftly climbed to egg-frying degree. I was probably out for about 40 minutes. It could have been longer if I hadn't went online first to check a friend's progress via FB as she was laboring to give birth to her firstborn in Pittsburgh.

Then, after I returned home, I took advantage of the continued slumbering of my husband and child to read the Bible for several chapters and pray a little. This falls by the wayside way too often when I'm just so wiped from taking care of the boy, or my prayers tend to be really resentful and/or pleading. 

And then, with exercising and spending some quiet time with God done, I took further advantage of my  rare solitude to try for the 50th time to read Dune, which all of my Carnegie Mellon nerd friends laud with protective zeal. I think my difficulty in getting into the story is the daunting foreignness of the universe presented right off the bat. After I forged through the first three chapters, I'm finally starting to care to read further.

I read until I heard Declan wake up and started crying "Mama, mama" while fiddling with the bedroom doorknob. It's a good thing my dad had left the master bedroom door's key in the lock. Otherwise, Declan would have unknowingly locked himself in the room many a times. 

It was such an accomplished two hours that I vowed yesterday to keep to this routine daily, if possible. I even went for another long walk later in the night. Alas, by now, I'm sure you know what happened just one day later: I woke up naturally again at 5:30am. Except I rolled over and slept for one more hour.

D'oh. I got up at 6:30am, caught up on the latest news of my friend's son's birth, (She ended up having a c-section after 17+ hours of natural labor. Mom is recovering while baby is being held and presented to the world by Dad) and ate breakfast while reading one more chapter of Dune.

A part of me seems to have lost all faith in the correlation between working out and staying/getting in shape. Something about being pregnant makes me go really (too) easy on my body. I really miss the days when I would push my body to run at least five miles a day in addition to other activities. Perhaps I am altogether too distrustful of what my body could handle while pregnant.

learning to relax

So I ended up going to the ob-gyn because Daniel told on me to my parents. The pain turned out to be round ligament pain, which felt a lot differently during my last pregnancy, but which my friend J.L. confirmed could be a lot worse in later pregnancies. The nurses told me to take it easy on lifting heavy things, such as the toddler, so it's been nice to get a break from Declan's intense need for touch as my mom and husband take over the carrying more.

It's been really nice, despite the occasional power struggle and clash in style and principles, to have my mom around the apartment. Declan's warmed to her attention, from initially yelling negatively when he saw her to now running to her for kisses spontaneously. I appreciate the diffusion of responsibility, and how it's so easy to get cheap and good food near our place so that I've also been taking a break from cooking our daily meals.

When things get a little easier, I tend to get more nervous. It's like I don't want to get comfortable, get used and soft to this lifestyle. But I was swimming in our apartment complex's pool (yes, there's a pool! And it's actually big enough for me to swim laps in!), I realized that my resistance to enjoy fully the present blessings in my life might be unnecessarily exhausting. It blocks me from fully appreciating, say, the temporary relief of my husband playing with our son so I can swim by myself. It blocks me from fully giving thanks for being able to exercise in a way that's completely safe to the baby in me. And a lot of other things, like how even though Declan can still get pretty frustrating, he's definitely more and more independent than the harder earlier months.

I should appreciate things like these more, even if they're not permanent fixtures of my life. (What is, anyway?)

"this, too, will pass" seems an impossibility right now

In my random internet surfing, I've come upon many, many comments by other women about how reading about complaints regarding being pregnant really sucks, especially when they have had miscarriages or infertility issues. Hence, I've cease and desisted on complaining to anyone other than my husband about how much more difficult this pregnancy has been than with Declan. Hardly anybody reads this blog though, so I shall vent freely here. Pregnancy with Declan was hard, to the point where I was pretty much done with ever having another kid biologically. There are those who say that each pregnancy is different, however, and I stupidly construed that to mean it could be easier the next time around.

Nope. I'm not sure why the side of my stomach started feeling the way it still is, but the sharp pain took my breath away when I tried to lie down on my side yesterday afternoon. The pain persisted for so long and so strongly that I wondered if I was having a placenta rupture. No blood though, so maybe it's just sciatic nerve pinching? I haven't told my parents because they tend to freak out at the smallest provocation, but if this continues, I will have to request medical examination. For now, I have to stand up straight and tall in order to take a deep breath without pain coming from the right side of my abdominal area.

Ugh, I really do hate being pregnant. Truly, never again.

taiwanese politics

Before I start writing what I originally planned, a random interlude that only a parent would understand the post-worthiness of: while Daniel and I were watching Almost Famous on HBO this afternoon, Declan was playing around in the living room when, all of a sudden, he fetched the blue potty that he would have nothing to do with thus far, took the lid off it, squatted, and proceeded to pee a good amount of liquid into the potty. I reached and grabbed it right before he got up and seemed to be about to flip the potty and dump his pee out. He was not happy by that turn of events, and shrieked for me to hand it back until I asked him to follow me to wash the potty out in the bathroom. I don't know if his sudden matter-of-fact autonomous potty utilization was a happy, genuine step towards successful potty-training, or if he was just bored and thought, "Why not?"

Anyhow, back to our regularly scheduled content. So there's been a piece of news that's all over the TV channels and newspapers and some of my DPP friends' Facebook accounts. Basically, the (former) secretary-general for the Executive Yuan, which is currently dominated by Taiwan's nationalist party and DPP's (the opposition party...think Democrats vs. Republicans) main rival, has confessed to bribery and corruption. He's pretty much going to be a jailbird for a long, long while and his political future is utterly destroyed at the tender age of 44. And this is a major embarrassment for the KMT since he's so high-ranking. Now investigations into other party members are underway.

I hear the news and kind of shrugged. I despise the DPP overall for a lot of reasons that my DPP friends would never keep an open mind long enough to hear about, but I've studied the history of both Eastern and Western governments enough to hold no party infallible. This current scandal, which seems to be giving the average citizens spats of histrionics, is really...ordinary to me. Another person, faced with near-absolute power, falls to the temptation of becoming filthy rich. Yawn. And, unlike my DPP friends who want him crucified, I do find it slightly refreshing that he confessed fairly quickly. In past corruption cases where it's a DPP member involved (*cough* former president Chen *cough* and his wife *cough*), the standard fare is to admit nothing even after being indicted despite numerous appeals. And then have their rabid supporters continue to insist that it's all an opposition party conspiracy to besmirch their name. This is better. You know it is.

But it remains that there's a lot of angry, self-righteous ranting right now, and since my family lives in southern Taiwan, which is a DPP stronghold, my stalwartly KMT-supporting dad is absolutely heartbroken and unusually quiet these couple of days. Until tonight, when we were eating at a roadside buffet. I don't remember how it came up, but eventually my parents started talking about how the only reason why the party secretary embezzled in the way he did was because he was merely operating the way southern politicians do things i.e. DPP politicians, since they hold most of the offices down south here. My parents are not known for volume control, and we were in a fairly small A/C-ed room. I noticed, out of the corners of my eyes, people at other tables starting to stare at us. Also, I kind of disagree with my parents' rationale. Wrong is wrong, even if it's the political climate. If he's really a principled enough man, it wouldn't matter how other people do things. He should have stuck with what was right. I mentioned that, in an equally loud voice, in part to appease our eavesdropping audience. I do not want to be yelled at like what happened once when I disagreed with a taxi driver's political view and got kicked out of the cab halfway to my destination.  My parents argued back that it's like smoking--habitual smokers who grew up among smokers don't see what they do as wrong or bad. It's just a way of life. I pushed back and said, smoking isn't a crime. It's not the same as bad morality. And then I changed the subject to something about living in China, because the people nearby still wouldn't stop staring and in fact had turned their bodies to face us directly.

As it turned out, that wasn't a safe subject either. I had changed the subject to China by retrieving an earlier thread of conversation in which my mom asked if I should in fact visit Hsinchu with Daniel when he visits the university there. She worried that the accommodations wouldn't be good enough for Declan and me. I said that nothing here could be worse than what I experienced in China. I joked about how I loved doing dishes so much after returning to the States, because I actually have two basins and hot water and I don't need to stand in pooling water. As I was detailing how sucky China was, one of the people who own the roadside buffet came by to clear the table a bit. I was pretty liberal in my descriptions since bashing China is not that unpopular among Taiwanese in the south...until the person asked my mom in passing when the latter went to get more green bean soup, whether we're from the mainland because our accent is not typically Taiwanese. The person, you see, along with the other owners of the roadside buffet, came from Fujian. So I felt really bad for bashing her country right in front of her; I held out a wisp of hope that maybe she secretly agrees, hence the emigration to Taiwan. Still, I admit I'm pretty bigoted and prejudiced against China and Chinese culture on the mainland. I had hoped that living there would erase that, but my bigotry seems to have actually grown.

Oh, and also my dad then started talking about how Fujianese and Taiwanese are basically one and the same dialect, so Taiwanese people who are anti-Chinese and proclaim that we're a completely separate culture and, in fact, race, are just fooling themselves. Eyes turned and glared. So much for my attempt at peace-keeping. I finished my green bean soup and suggested we go. Like, right now, please?