Being Treated as Air

(A little background information, in case you weren’t aware of this: I am a Canadian living in Taiwan. My wife is Taiwanese and both of our children were born here. As well as my first language of English, I have also become quite fluent in Mandarin Chinese in the twelve-plus years I have been living here. I am quite capable of carrying on a conversation with anybody about anything here. The person mentioned below knows this -- or at least should know this because I have spoken with her before.)
As posted on my Facebook page: 如果我一天不想在台灣繼續住下去的話，原因就是我受不了別人認為我是空氣。
This afternoon my wife, my daughter, and I went to pick up my son from school. As we were standing there waiting for the children to be let out, one of the teachers came out to tell us – or I at least thought it was “us” – something good that my son had done that day. I was holding on to my daughter and my wife was standing right beside me. The teacher came out and started telling my wife – not me, apparently – what had happened. The interesting thing that I noted was that her eyes were focused on my wife and my wife only. They didn't register me at all. It was as if I wasn't there. To make matters worse, as they were talking, both the teacher and my wife turned their bodies to look at my son who was across the yard playing. In doing so they essentially turned their backs to me and left me standing behind them. I was effectively eliminated from the conversation.
That in itself isn't very nice, I think, and left me feeling quite strange. The big thing, however, is that the school my son goes to is a little special. They are taught the basic concepts of Buddhism and Confucianism. One of the things they are taught is that the family unit is very important. In particular, children there are taught that one's parents are very important and need to be respected. For example, all the students are expected to bow and say hello to every parent – including their own – that they see.
Should that doctrine not also extend to the teachers as well? If we as adults want children to behave a certain way, should we not act that way ourselves? As such, should the teachers not also respect the parents of the students there? One way, I would think, to show that respect is not to pretend or in any way give the impression that one parent is not even there. Because that's the way it felt to me as I was standing there. I got the feeling that that teacher didn't even know I was there, even though I was standing right beside the person she did know was there.

Love or Loathe?

I don't know whether this person really likes my post or hates it, but either way this person cant' spell.
> i read your article and loave it so much ,thank you so much.

Classroom Rules

1. Speak English. Do not speak Chinese, Taiwanese, or anything else.

2. Listen. Pay attention. Do not talk to your classmates.

3. Look at the teacher when he is talking and when you are talking to him. Maintain eye contact.

4. Answer all questions. Be active.

        A) If you don't know the answer to a question, you can say, "I don't know."

        B) If you don't understand the question, you can say, "I don't understand."

        C) If you didn't hear the question, you can say, "Say it again, please."

5. Bring your books to class. No book, no chair.

6. Have your book and a pencil case on your desk. Nothing else.

7. Do not do homework in class or any other writing or drawing.

8. Do not put your head on your desk. Do not sleep in class.

9. Keep notes.

        A) If the teacher writes something on the board, write it in you book.

        B) If you don't have a book, write things in a notebook or on paper.

1. 10. Be respectful and polite to everyone.

Did I forget anything? Please let me know.

I Mean What I Say

I’m sorry people, but I can read Chinese, at least a little. While I may not be able to read something as difficult as a novel, things like advertisements, menus, and text messages are usually quite understandable. Therefore, when I say things like: “Hey, look at this!” I am not asking you to translate it, I am not asking you what it says. No, I am saying to you: “Hey, look at this!”

Sunrise over the Mountains

After her breakfast (150cc of tasty formula) and after she had burped, I decided to take my daughter outside for a little stroll. I was very glad I did, as I got to see the sun coming up over the mountains in the distance:

I just wish I had a better camera (this was taken with the 1.3 megapixel camera on my cell phone), that it was clearer (it was a little hazy in the distance), and that I had another hand to keep the phone steady (one arm was needed to hold on to my daughter). Nevertheless, the pictures turned out okay considering, it was a beautiful sight. This is one of the reasons I enjoy living here.

I don’t have access to the EXIF info for these pictures, so I can’t tell you the difference in time between the first picture and the last picture but it’s probably only a minute or two (two at the max). I think it’s interesting that you can stand there and look at the sun in the sky and it doesn’t seem to move at all, but when it’s rising up over the mountains, you can almost see it move. Notice that the sun is higher in the last picture than it is in the first. As I said, there was only about one minute or so between the two pictures.

My Giant Rincon

I used to always refer to this as my mountain bike. My wife -- who doesn’t really understand the difference between road and mountain bikes -- calls it “Little Yellow”. (My road bike is called “Little White”.) Well, I am going to have to stop calling it that and either call it what my wife calls it or refer to it by it’s brand and/or model.

Why? Well, partly because even though it is a mountain bike (a Giant Rincon), it has never been used as such. I have never gone on single-track or anywhere else off road. (I don’t think a section of road back in the boondocks that was under construction and not paved at the time counts as off road.) This bike has only ever been used on the road.

Some background information then. This was my first “real” bike, but back then I didn’t know what a real bike was. I got a mountain bike because bikes based on mountain bikes (but of low quality) were what I -- not knowing any better -- had always ridden. Once I learned more about bicycles and cycling and then got myself an actual road bike (at the time a Specialized Tarmac E5, later my current bike, a GT R Ultra), I rode this one less and less. It came to the point where I hardly rode it at all.

I knew I should be riding it and I tried to ride it. Quite often before rides I would decide that I was going to ride my mountain bike but when I got down to the garage and looked at my two bikes, I pulled out my road bike. It was hard to ride the Rincon because it was just too darn uncomfortable. I could do a seventy or eighty kilometre ride on the GT and not want to go home just quite yet. After thirty or forty on the mountain bike, however, and I just wanted to get home and finish.

I then discovered that my discomfort was coming from two places: my butt and my upper body. To rectify the first problem I changed saddles, going to a leather one. (I now have leather saddles on both bikes -- I put one on my road bike first. I don’t think I will ever go back to using a more modern-style -- that is, not leather -- saddle again.) The second problem was harder to diagnose and I had always assumed it was just the bike itself or just the style of the bike, in the sense that I had been riding a road bike for so long that I was just used to the positioning and geometry of a road bike.

If that was the case, what could I do about it? I then realized that my arms didn’t like the position they were in while riding. The decision was then made to switch from a flat handlebar to drop handlebars. And now the process (here, here, and here) has been completed. And looking at these pictures you will hopefully understand why I might have to stop calling this bike my mountain bike. It doesn’t much look like one anymore, does it?

Now, you may think I’m crazy, but to me it just makes sense. It’s always used on the road, isn’t it? So why shouldn’t it have drop handlebars? I was initially worried that putting drop bars on it would make it look funny, but, at least to me, it doesn’t look strange at all. I like the bar tape too. Yes, I could have picked a different colour, but I liked the apple green. I thought it would look very special on the bike. There was a silver that just about matched the silver detailing on the frame, but I thought the contrast of the green would look good. And, I think I was right. But, once again, you might think I’m crazy. (By the way, when the time comes to change the bar tape on my road bike, I’m thinking of going with purple.) (Update: As you can see from the picture above, this is no longer the case. I have since switched to Brooks leather bar tape in raspberry colour.)

I took it for its first ride last night and other than having to adjust the tilt on the saddle, it felt and rode very good. Before I didn’t really want to ride this bike at all, but now I find myself wanting to ride it. Right now I’m itching to ride it up to Alishan to try it out whereas before that was a ride I would only dream of doing on a road bike.

Being Different

I’ve always felt that I was a little different from most people. By themselves those differences didn’t make me that unique, but when added together I do think they make me quite special. For example, I’m left handed, most people are right handed. I was goalie in hockey, most people choose not to play that position. I played soccer, most people in my home town played softball. I refereed minor hockey, most people choose not to subject themselves to such ridicule. I use a Mac (and Linux on my laptop), most people -- still -- use Windows. I left my home country to live and work, most people I know don’t move too far from their home town. And here’s the kicker: Most road cyclists use drop handlebars. In that, I am the same; there is no difference there. But some cyclists decide they don’t like or want drop handlebars for some reason and put flat bars on their road bikes. Me, I go the other way. I am attempting to put drop handlebars on my mountain bike. Let’s hope it works out. Stay tuned.