Kaohsiung, Taiwan

Semester over, did a one-day retreat on Saturday, emailed my aunt that I was thinking of going to Kaohsiung on Sunday or Monday, got a reply from her telling me to come down on Sunday as soon as possible, because my cousin who's living in China was coming in that day with his Chinese girlfriend/potential wife.

Apparently, this was a big deal.

My uncle's apartment was crammed full of relatives craning and rubbernecking to meet and ogle the possible new addition to the family, although they will remain distant as I'm pretty sure my cousin is pretty settled on staying in China. Listening to him talk about China, it sounds like he was a mainlander for many lifetimes. It's deep within his habituated self and identity, fervent even.

Did you ever have a disagreement with someone and their stance is basically, "You know, if you would just see things from my point of view and ignore your own, you would understand."? That's what it's like talking to him about China.

I come from an international human rights background, and my criticisms are primarily against the government, but he keeps pushing for me to come to China and see what it's really like, thinking it will change my opinion.

But I have nothing against the Chinese people, and whatever I experience first-hand is not going to change my opinion about the human rights violations by the government. It's not going to make me realize that the Dalai Lama is, in fact, a separatist terrorist seeking to overthrow the government, and that the guy Yahoo! recently got thrown in jail deserved it.

And it's not going to make me start using Yahoo! again. Google isn't beyond reproach as I recall they were kow-towing and bending over backwards to censor Google usage for the Chinese people, but morally, Yahoo! are pygmies.

In his urgings to come to China, he said, "Just come and see what it's like, and don't talk to anyone about human rights or anyone involved in human rights." See? He's Chinese! In Taiwanese politics, people are divided between the blue and green camps. I'm green. My uncle's blue (for some bizarre reason not even my mother can figure out). My cousin's . . . red.

Regardless of this, he and I go way back, and our usual fruitless debates don't taint our relationship any or cause any hard feelings between us.

And I also found out that I'm past conscription age, so I just have to do a few things with my passport and I'm as good as sworn in as a citizen without having to do time in the military. I can stay here as long as I want, I don't need a work visa to work, and I don't need to be enrolled in school to stay here. I can take a leave of absence after the next term to do whatever. Basically it feels like my options have become much more wide open. What that means practically, if it's going to change anything about what I'm doing or how I feel, I have no idea. It might not even be true.

The one-day retreat was really a good experience. I hadn't done one in almost three years, and a whole day of sitting and other types of meditation was very grounding, taking me back to my Zen roots, my first spiritual language.

I've been meeting up with a woman in this meditation group for the past couple weeks for language and dharma exchange. There's no, like, chemistry between us to speak of, but in terms of practice, we're pretty par and speak very similar languages. We know what each other means, and that's pretty rare for me. Usually people don't get my meaning or I feel they're not listening to me, don't understand me, or they bore me.

Finally, I'm in Kaohsiung now and I'm feeling quite comfortable here. I feel like I've escaped from Taipei. My experience in Taipei is starting to rot. I'm very tempted to move here after this next semester. The key thing that might keep me in Taipei is if I get that drumming gig. Running through all my doubts about accepting it if offered, I realize I really shouldn't let that opportunity slip by.