Service Interrupted (1)

Merry Christmas! Joyeux Noel! Sheng4Dan4Jie2Kuai4Le4!

If you search Google for information regarding Taiwanese funeral customs, you see a fair mix of information. Here is one site that I have found that accords with some of my family's practices. Practices and beliefs differ from group to group (even from family to family) within Taiwan due to the wide mix of people on the island (they may all look the same to you, but to me there are Taiwanese, Chinese, the indigenous peoples and others). I thought I would blog about my experience to share a little about my experience with Taiwanese culture and also to document it for my own sake.

General things you should know about my family and me. My parents immigrated from Taiwan before I was born. For the most part, my family (grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins) lives in Taiwan. More so on my mother's side than my father's side. When together, my family speaks a mix of Taiwanese/Mandarin/English/Japanese (due to the Japanese influences on Taiwan). I am practically illiterate. I attended Chinese school for a few years as a child. I can write my name, numbers, and a handful of basic characters. I figure out pinyin/characters through a combination of the internet, phonetics, vague memories and the power of deduction.

My grandfather's funeral rites follow a mix of Buddhist and Taiwanese traditions. Since he passed away, my relatives have been going to the temple to pay respects to my grandfather. Each morning, they go to bai4bai4. This involves burning incense and giving thanks or offerings and general respect paying. According to Taiwanese beliefs, he is ascending to the afterlife but he has not taken anything with him. Each morning, after paying our respects by burning incense at his soul altar, we burn paper flowers (the steps for him to reach the afterlife) and sacrificial money (money for the afterlife). Basically, my grandmother's apartment is reminiscent of a paper/origami factory.

An auspicious day was chosen for my grandfather's funeral (07/01/08), unfortunately it is not so for my uncle's wife. A Buddhist ritual, two wooden-pieces are tossed to the floor. If they both land face-down, the answer is "No". One-up and one-down means "Yes". The internet (i.e. I don't know this person) tells me that having both face-up means that the spirit really approves. Though my family believes if they are both face up, the answer is also "No". Of all the days suggested to my grandfather (each one inauspicious for each of his children and his daughter-in-law), he selected the one that was inauspicious for my uncle's wife.

Yesterday, we went to select my grandfather's urn. Well, really my grandfather had already "selected" (same eight-ball method) his urn, but we went to inspect it for flaws. My grandmother and mother wanted a perfect one of course, but after much careful inspection, they realized that all of the urns had their own particular flaws (of course, you can't expect anything human-made to be perfect - that would imply that humans are capable of perfection). So, the family decided on the original urn.

Ancestor worship may be unfamiliar to some of you. The concept is even more difficult to explain in French to HCNs who for the most part think the three choices for religion are Christianity (Catholic or Protestant), Islam, or Animist. In fact there is a joke that the sum of the distribution of religion is 2 (and not 1) because everyone is animist. Really the closest in village I could come to describing it was animism.

Anyway, speaking of respecting my elders, it is getting late and I need to go to bed.

From Doha, Qatar (Posted in Hong Kong)

22 December 2007 - 1855 GMT
Doha, QATAR

Early this morning, I left Ouagadougou for Casablanca, one fantastically named city for another made famous by the movie of the same name. I have only ever seen the last scene. This is the first time in more than six months that I have left the country. I wish it were under better circumstances. As I mentioned previously, my grandfather passed away two weeks ago. The news came as a shock because after almost six months of serious health problems, it looked like he was finally on the upswing. I actually found out several days after he died due to poor network coverage. On holidays and weekends in Burkina Faso, text messages are hit or miss. And unfortunately, they missed me for several days in a row.

Originally, I was planning to holiday in Ghana. My entire stage (training group) is going, with the exception of the ETers, a couple people, and myself. Also, my neighbor and a few other PCVs are heading down there as well. I was planning to spend Christmas on the beach, hike and river raft, and traverse the renowned canopy walk (this list is neither exhaustive or ordered). Also, HB is headed to Ghana to visit his family at conveniently the same time I had planned to be there. As fun as it is to think of might-have-beens, I decided that I need to be with my family.

Looking on the plus side, my grandfather lived a very long and successful life despite his penchant for smoking, drinking, and a rich diet (all three of which he gave up as the years went on). I did have a chance to see him back in March before his health started to give him problems again. I also will be with my family for an extended period of time, and I am very grateful for that. My colleagues (PCVs and HCNs) as well as the PC staff have been very supportive during this time, and I want to thank them for that. I have been distracted, distraught, and pretty much just doing what I need to get myself to Taiwan. I know, however, without the wonders of modern technology, I could in all possibility be finding out about this news even later than now. Or, alternatively, I could be trapped in an airport trying to pay my way between countries. Really, without the support of everyone, I would be a lot more worse for wear than I currently am (mild case of bronchitis). Being sick on top of it all, hasn't helped, but at the same time I think the being sick is related to the stress that I have been feeling. (Stress weakens the immune system after all.)

The flight from Ouaga to Casablanca was mostly a half-asleep blur to me. It left at 0330 after all, and I was exhausted (n.b. I typically wake up somewhere between 0400 and 0600). I am not as young as I used to be, nor have I been in the best health or sleeping well lately. I was not at the airport long before taking off for Doha, Qatar. I have to say that Royal Air Maroc had surprisingly spacious legroom, but the food left something to be desired. Qatar Airways had very tasty food and personal tvs. The flight was not full at all, so I sat back and caught up on some movies before dozing off. I am hanging out in the airport right now waiting for my flight gate to be announced. The layover is approximately five hours. I hope that the flight to Hong Kong is equally awesome, but I don't have my hopes up.

(This part written in HK.)

Flight from Doha to Hong Kong was not bad. Though I slept a lot again. I will be with my family soon. Will probably be online until my battery runs out as I am hanging out in the HK airport until my next (and last flight). Thanks to everyone for their support.

PS, One of the down sides to traveling alone is the lack of people to watch your stuff while you run to the bathroom.

Fo Gou'ni

Fo Gou'ni Good morning everyone.

I am back online for the second time since... well, the last time I posted! Yesterday would be the first time but blogger was being persnickity.

These would be the only two pictures that my camera is willing to give up. The rest from Thanksgiving (food list to come) and pictures of my students refuse to be recognized by computers all around BF. I have some more photos of my house and pictures of a storm rolling in from September/October, but they are stored elsewhere so I will try to remember to bring them in tomorrow.



The first one would be one of two pies made for Thanksgiving holiday (that would be the apple pie) and the other is me after eating lots of tasty thanksgiving food. Even from the unflattering angle, it is apparent that my eating seven or more meals a day isn't helping. Yes, I do actually have first breakfast and second breakfast and sometimes if not often first and second lunch and don't forget the snacks, too! No, I am not a hobbit, but I do bike a minimum of 5k a day, if not more.



My schedule has been shuffled around a bit, and now I teach math and EPS (that would be PE/gym). I have Mondays off which works out well for me since Sunday is typically my big cleaning day. My villagers/fonctionnaires make fun of me because they don't see me all morning (and I get up before dawn) except to go to the water pump to get water. So, it gives me Monday to relax and run errands and whatnot. I am the professeur principal of 4e. That means I do the work of what computers do to calculate "GPA" or the "Moyenne". I did some programming on my dusty old TI-85 (literally it was quite dusty). Unfortunately, I remembered the limitations of that sucker in the process of programming. I remember back in high school how jealous I was with people with even TI-86's and let's not even talk about those TI-89's. I am sure technology has much advanced since then. What I would give to have Matlab and Mathematica running on something the size of a TI (and AAA or AA batteries)!!

I did not leave my village for the entire month of October, not even day trips to go to the "big city" or to visit CLM's village. In November I was finally getting stir crazy and had to restock on some tasty treats at the "supermarket" so I got to the "big city". I also played basketball, got beat up by some kids in it (not really), but I tried to turn a corner and I am just not as fast as the boys here, so I got knocked down. Banged up my glasses, knees, elbows and my head pretty good, but I am fully healed now. The glasses could be in better shape, but I still wear them in village because its better than having to switch between normal glasses and sunglasses. I am lazy, it's true, but I also bike 15k to play basketball all day and then bike back 15k afterwards, so I make up for it sort of. Internet by me has been broken since I last used it. So, I haven't gone in to the "big city" that often except to buy food for Turkey day.

Thanksgiving was amazing. Here is the list of goods consumed: popcorn, peanut brittle, beef stew, green bean casserole, candied yams, mashed potatoes, gravy, turkey and stuffing, pintade, fajitas, fried rice, pumpkin pie, apple pie, brownies, sparkling cider, sparkling grape juice, soda (I have now grown to be a big fan of tonic), yaw (dolo/millet bair). I am sure there were other things, but that is all my addled brain can remember right now.

December was kind of hectic with schedule shuffling and then grading and then calculating all my grades by Friday night so that I could leave Saturday morning. It has been hard for me because I found out on Wednesday that my grandfather passed away a week ago due to a stroke. I was planning on going to Ghana for vacation, but instead, I am trying to get to Taiwan for the funeral.

I don't have much more to say right now, except that I am a little sick and a little out of it due to the combination of events and sickness.