Tibet Trip Day 5

Lhasa, Tibet

This day turned out to be the best day of the entire trip for me, no doubt attributed in no small part to the fact that I managed to stay away from the tour group the entire day. We had the whole morning free and weren’t scheduled to meet until 11:30 to go to the Potala Palace, I thought. I definitely wanted to go there, so I wanted to be back on time.

Morning exploring

After breakfast, I set out with my cameras hoping to catch some good morning light as the sun rose. Unfortunately, I had pretty bad luck with the light and it wasn’t a nice morning light, but immediately harsh with ugly contrasts and shadows. I couldn’t find any shots in the ghetto I'd scoped out the previous night.

I did come across a group of poor Tibetans, one of them carrying a Tibetan guitar, so I thought he might be a musician, but I don’t think so. He wouldn’t play, he just fiddled with the tuning pegs and asked for money. They all asked for money. And this was the second person I saw carrying a Tibetan guitar who didn't look like he could play the instrument. Just fiddling with the tuning pegs and asking for money.

At this point, I still hadn’t figured out it’s best not to talk to Tibetans in Chinese. I realized later that I should always first talk to them in English, especially since I look Chinese. Many Tibetans know English, but even if they don’t, at least speaking in English makes it clear that I’m not Chinese. That’s of key importance.

Tibetans speak Chinese because they are forced to, but they can’t tell the difference between proper Chinese and my bad Chinese, so no matter how bad my Chinese may be, they can’t tell and immediately assume I’m a fucking mainland Chinese person.

Jokhang Temple

I was so unhappy with the light conditions that I stopped looking for shots, and decided to put that off until later. I still had several hours so I decided to go to Jokhang Temple near our hotel, which is probably one of the more important spiritual centers in Lhasa.

October 2, 5:45 p.m.

Jokhang Temple has a heavy Red Army presence around it and attracts huge amounts of tourists, but is still a magnet for Tibetans for worship. The temple itself is surrounded on all sides by a huge market selling objects of spiritual nature, and abuts an area that caters to travelers – not Chinese tourists – with low-cost hotels and hostels and English advertisements for food, internet, coffee, and guides for trekking and traveling out of Lhasa.

Rainbow V 22mm lens toy camera, Ilford XP2 Super film:

I had passed by Jokhang first thing that morning, and even as the marketplace was setting up, there was a huge line of Tibetans waiting to enter the temple. I wasn’t sure what that line was, but I was hoping I wouldn't have to wait in it, because I definitely wouldn't have had time.

But I found the ticket office and the monk there selling tickets told me that tourists buying tickets didn't have to wait in that line and could directly enter. That monk was my first clue that the monks generally are conversant in English.

I went in amidst the buzz and flurry of activity that surrounds this temple, and even though there were Chinese tourists in swarms there, being there did help ground me and put aside the disgust I felt about the Chinese occupation in Lhasa in general, and connect with a spiritual aspect of being there.

10:30-10:38 a.m., I forget if tourists were ushered to the upper level or just gravitated there, with ground level mainly for Tibetan practitioners who had to wait in line to enter. 

But being the responsible individual I am, I made sure I got back to the hotel in time to join the tour group, but once I got there, my cousin told me they were going to lunch first before going to the Potala Palace. I had no interest in going to another Chinese-style, multi-course banquet, so I told my cousin I'd meet them there. Since I had passed by the Potala Palace the night before, I had an idea where the entrance was to meet up with the group.

Tibet Trip Day 4

Lhasa, Tibet

Today was the long bus drive to the capital city of Lhasa, but on the way there were two touristy stops. The first was a valley forest park with a waterfall, and I guess the tourist highlight is that alongside the waterfall in the rock is a naturally formed image of the Buddha's face.

8:38 a.m., at what are they gawking?!

8:42 a.m., camera zoom answers

Again, I couldn't get a scope of the whole area since we were shepherded just to see certain things. The nature of tour groups is that you get taken to a place, you gawk at something for a limited duration of time and then get ushered on to the next thing to gawk at. Really dumb. But I noticed the path going to and past the base of the waterfall and said, fuckit, I bet I could walk the whole thing and still catch up to the old folk as they hobbled back to the bus. So I did.

Tibet Trip Day 3

Nyingchi, Tibet

Two days in Nyingchi are way too much for a package tour group. There are probably plenty of places to go and see if you have a proper guide and flexibility and mobility, but for a package tour where someone is sitting in a tour agency office deciding where to take a group of people and when, pickings are apparently slim.

This morning we went to see some really big cypress trees that called to mind giant redwoods in California, but ultimately left me unimpressed. It looked like there might have been good hiking, but I was with a bunch of old people who mostly couldn't handle anything vigorous, plus since I'm pretty much incommunicado on this trip with no information coming to me and no way to ask, I didn't know if I could safely take off on my own without inconveniencing everybody.

After wondering about it for a while, I finally did start venturing up into the pathways, taking my earbuds out in case people called me back, and call me back they did; they were about done. No one else was willing to venture further into the prayer flag swathed grove. They just stayed at the lower level area and gawked at the trees, taking pictures like good tourists do.

Back in the parking lot, I noticed that the grove of trees, nestled at the base of a mountain, didn't cover much acreage. Looking up the mountain, it was clear the grove of trees did not go up the mountain, and therefore those paths were likely quite short. Not impressed.

9:47 a.m.-10:04 a.m.

Tibet Trip Day 2

Nyingchi, Tibet

Wake up call was pretty early to catch a 7:30 a.m. two-hour flight from Chengdu to Nyingchi, a town several hundred kilometers east of Lhasa in Tibet. I knew we were flying up to a pretty high altitude, so I was curious when on the plane the altimeter on my watch read above 9,000 feet. Usually planes pressurize the cabin to about a 6,000 feet equivalent, which is still easily a comfortable air pressure.

After we landed and de-planed, the altimeter was at about 9,600 feet, so I think the pressurization on the plane was intentional. Flying into Nyingchi Airport was pretty incredible. When I think of planes flying through mountain valleys, I'm more apt to imagine smaller planes – not jetliners. I can't imagine it being relaxing for the flight crew winding through the mountains, or how they knew the way to the airport.

From my window seat, landing came pretty suddenly. One moment we're flying, albeit pretty low, through mountain valleys, watching scenery, cattle and roads go by below, and suddenly we touch down.

The modest airport was pretty much just an airstrip, which I assume was built by the Chinese primarily to ferry tourists back and forth to poison and dilute Tibet with Chinese influence. Ours was the only plane there, and as we got off, there were passengers waiting to get on that plane, ostensibly to go back to China. It looked like it might've been a one flight in, one flight out per day deal.

9:33 a.m., Nyingchi Airport

It was pretty darn chilly at 9,600 feet at 9:30 in the morning, and I was still dressed for late summer nearer to sea level, so the first thing I did was get my jacket out of my luggage. We were met by our tour guide for Tibet, a mainland Chinese guy, and ushered onto our bus. Altitude sickness was the first thing explained and canisters of oxygen were handed out.

The landscape was striking as we traveled along the valley roads. The mountains were grand, the rivers were grand, as were the clouds and the sun and sky. Over the course of the trip, I think I found I loved the rivers the most. Whether vast sprawling rivers or tributary streams, they were ubiquitous and consistently powerful and impressive.

9:57 a.m., from the bus

Our first stop was at the Lamaling Temple, a former monastery and currently attended to by a handful of monks and resident Tibetans. The former monastery was sacked by the Chinese during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, and the current structure was rebuilt in a different location. Not a glaring tourist trap, but likely a fabricated tourist stop by the Chinese.

10:39 a.m., tiny spider

The Chinese will likely say it is to help them economically, but the Tibetans would probably say they would rather not have the tourists. I'm more likely to agree with the stance that this is part of establishing Chinese hegemony, and also to keep Tibetans in their place as a sideshow attraction, and to emphasize that their places of worship are just for show as far as the Chinese government is concerned.

Tibet Trip Day 1

Chengdu, China

The things I put up with being in this family. I guess in this case the frustration level is relatively low, possibly because I'm so used to it and desensitized, and as the truth of this trip comes out in real time, I just chuckle at the ridiculousness of what I put up with.

I only found out yesterday that this trip isn't what it seemed – that I wasn't going with the uncle I'm most familiar with in Taiwan, which is no big deal since traveling with him has pros and cons, usually more cons – and I found out today that the trip was completely not what I was led to believe. Not only was the other uncle I thought I was going with not going, but I was in a tour group with 11 other people, including my cousin (at least I got that bit of information right), who is the tour guide.

My cousin picked me up at my uncle's building at around six this morning. My cousin's wife drove us to Kaohsiung International Airport. It was only there that other people started to show up and I realized it was a tour group. Whatever. I was just floating through this and letting go and letting myself be told what to do and when. I was fine with the tour group thing, too, since it would allow me to be more anonymous.

We flew to Hong Kong (1½ hours) and transferred to a flight to Chengdu, China (2 hours). We did some touristy stuff, and my fellow tour group members soon got familiar seeing me only with my iPod earbuds stuck in my ears. Since they were all talking in Taiwanese, I felt no need to even pretend I wanted to communicate with them. This was their tour, and I was tagging along.

Hong Kong, 11:22 a.m.; China Airlines is a Taiwanese carrier. Air China is Chinese. I'm not in Kansas anymore.

It turns out I was taking the place of my uncle who decided he didn't want to go on this trip, and I got Shanghai'd, so to speak, into it. Typical of his about-face selfishness that tends to drive people crazy, but overall he's so generally likable he can get away with it. He's also very generous in other ways, which counterbalances it.

I guess I should've been offended by the arrangement, as I was only an afterthought to make things convenient for other people, but I can only chuckle at my insignificance, and I agreed to it because it was Tibet. Anywhere else, they couldn't convince me to go if I didn't want to.

The touristy stuff in Chengdu was pretty pedestrian, and I couldn't get away from the tour group until after we checked into our (rather nice) hotel, and it was dark by then, so I just did some exploring on foot at night. Chengdu seems to be a nice enough Chinese city.

Chengdu, China; 4:20 p.m. Just a pagoda in a park.

Black and whites (Pentax ZX-5n Nikon N70, Kodak BW400CN film):

About a month ago I was scanning my apartment as if I was about to go on a trip, making sure everything was in place and that I had everything I was supposed to bring.

A month later I'm actually scanning my apartment to go on this trip to China and the Chinese-occupied Tibetan region.

And a month from now, after the trip and supposedly after my parents' visit to Taiwan, I'll be scanning my apartment one last time to make sure everything is how I want it, inshah'allah.

It does bother me that I'm putting off my plan for another month. It makes it pretty much a likely certainty that I won't be carrying it out. And it turns out that my parents aren't visiting soon after I get back from Tibet, but two weeks after, and then they'll be here for about a week.

If I'm truly suicidal, why am I going to wait for their visit to come and go? So they don't have to deal with the mystery of my disappearance? That's laughable. What mystery? It would slide. They'd go through their visit and leave as scheduled. Sure they wouldn't know where I was, but they'd sooner get pissed than think something was wrong. They wouldn't have to deal with anything while they were here.

What bothers me most about putting off the plan for another month is nothing will be any different after. There's the possibility of doing it immediately after they leave, but like I said, putting it off is itself the best indicator of the likelihood of that happening. I feel like I'm beyond what I can tolerate anymore, but I can decide to not be beyond it for a month and tolerate it.

Anyway, that feeling of being beyond what I can tolerate anymore doesn't quite hold up to scrutiny as being something or meaning anything. Although those are the words that pop into my head to describe how I might be feeling, it's just the surface manifestation of causes and conditions of my life. Suicide is much more reality than those feelings are, and they're separate. Remove the feelings, suicide is still here, always has been.

Even beyond suicide is the reality that I don't have to commit suicide. Nothing whatsoever should be clung to, not even our lives, not even our deaths, not even suicide. But considering my life in total, I don't think there's a problem in this particular life ending in suicide. I might even consider it rational or natural. It's understandable.

It was a pretty big revelation before that negativity should not be clung to. Struggling, struggling, struggling against negativity as this huge obstacle. Turns out the struggling, struggling, struggling is the bigger problem than the negativity. Let it go. Better to just accept the negativity than get attached to struggling to get rid of it. Paradigm shift.

And at the point before dying, . . . I don't know, I'm still trying to formulate it . . . keep it in mind that I'm letting go of all "negative thoughts, destructive emotions and karmic obscurations"; I'm eradicating them, I will be victorious over them, they will be no more – I'm still trying to find the right expression of the idea.

The Accidental Gangster and the Mistaken Courtesan (Chinese title: 1724 妓房動亂事件 (1724 Disturbance in the Courtesan's Quarters) (Korea, 2008)

I have no idea what the Korean title is, but I like the English title because it's more descriptive and intriguing, and amidst all the gangland scheming and posturing in the film, it brings attention to the fact that a love story underpins the whole thing. It's kind of a period comedy with healthy doses of drama and action to make it difficult to pigeonhole. It's hip and stylized with a modern score and I found it a lot of fun.

It's about a lowly street fighter in an environment where organized crime lays down the law. He accidentally runs into and falls in love with a courtesan who is being delivered to a gangster brothel. He also has a run in with the local gang, one of two main gangs, and gets propelled into the heart of the gangland world. Turns out the gang he gets pulled into, the Odd Ear Gang, is the rival of the Big Gun Gang that runs the brothel to which his beloved is taken.

The street fighter may be lowly, but he's down-to-earth and has the heart of a lion which makes him likable. The courtesan is played by Kim Ok-Bin, who redefined gorgeousness for me. I kept missing reading subtitles because of her. Her character is a little uneven, and a viewer not as smitten as I was may find further faults with her.

The other characters are all sorts of colorful and even with a defined dramatic plot, the comic elements range from quirky to slapstick funny. The entire final fight scene is stylized with animated elements which I felt worked because as exaggerated as the scene is, it keeps the kinetic momentum of a fight scene (unlike failed action scenes in the later Matrix films which had no kinetic feeling and were therefore bo-ring and pointless).

It's not a perfect film, but I give it a strong 8 out of 10 fresh tomatoes.

There aren't many opportunities to see Korean films here that have English subtitles. Recently, it has just been this one and "The Good, the Bad, the Weird", which I also rated high. And these two films share the characteristic that they are period pieces, but are fresh, hip and vibrant, and have a modern feel which makes it easier to be entertaining. Korea appears on the cusp of the new hip, if it isn't already. Which is odd and great since 10 years ago I was calling Korean films the French films of Asia. Not a good thing.



Forever the Moment (Korean title translation: The Best Moment of Our Lives) (Korea, 2008)

This film is a fictionalized version of the South Korean Olympic handball team leading up to their participation in the 2004 Athens Olympics. Handball? What the hell is handball? Needless to say, many dramatic plot elements are created for a story, but since the Athens Olympics is a historical event, the outcome of the story is set in stone.

I really liked this film. It's not a perfect film, it has a lot of unevenness in the characters, and the time spans don't seem right in training up to a major athletic event. There are a bunch of subplots I would best describe as "curious". I guess there's a reason for them being there, but they don't get fleshed out very much. Not a fatal flaw.

This is sort of an underdog triumphant sports film. At the start of the film, a corporate handball team gets dismantled and various players are drawn into the national team that will go to the Olympics. The main characters of the film, however, were on the medal-winning teams of the 1992 and 1996 teams. Read: they're considered old-timers.

The national team is in a bit of shambles with all sorts of problems, and naturally this film is about how they get their act together to perform as well as they did in Athens. I think the film was successful in that regard. I think it is making a point that to be successful in an endeavor, there needs to be heart, there needs to be humanity and understanding, not just cut-throat ambition and analysis to figure out the best way to win. A feel-good bit of cliché, I suppose.

A scene that I thought summed up the film, and this isn't a spoiler, is when one of the players visits her old coach, who has retired to coaching handball to high school students in a small town, and he is truly happy in a Zen-like way. While visiting her former coach, she asks one of the student athletes, "Do you find handball fun?", and with a big smile, the girl answers, "Yes, it's fun", and runs back to practice. It's that simple.

Of course, that's not the world of competitive sports, which is cut-throat and the thrill of victory and the agony of the feet create the best moments. It's a strange juxtaposition because the film doesn't seem to be criticizing the modern sports ethos.

Strong 7 out of 10 fresh tomatoes.

I had to go to Kaohsiung to take care of visa issues for Tibet, in the course of which I had to affirm China's authority, but also forced China to give special treatment to Taiwanese. NB: They can't treat us like Chinese.

Kaohsiung, KMRT station by my uncle's building. Rainbow V 22mm lens toy camera, Ilford XP2 Super.

This trip will be training in "losing myself". The relatives I'm going with don't speak English, so I won't be able to speak with anyone the whole trip, which is fine with me as an excuse to constantly listen to music. No decisions made will be mine, I will have no access to information about what's going on or where we're going. Basically, I'll just be floating through the trip and doing what people tell me to do and when. That's all OK; good training.

Shortly after returning from Tibet, my parents are visiting Taiwan. So if the Tibet trip doesn't aggravate me enough, my parents may push me to the breaking point in deciding to finally do something about not wanting to be here anymore. The Tibet trip leads unavoidably into my parents' trip, so all plans are off until after they leave, but can happen immediately afterwards.

As difficult as each day-by-day is getting, I'm not going to get bent out of shape by the delay; just take it as it comes. I'm keeping stress levels in check and watching where I'm abiding so that I can try not to get caught up by negativity.

And even about the negativity – it's not such a big deal or struggle. The more attached I am to the struggle against my negativity, the more I'm affirming its existence. So the best way to counter it is to not struggle against it. It's just a bratty kid trying to get attention. If it's there, it's just there; just be mindful and watch it and keep in mind not to let it get out of hand.

The delay is bothersome because it is another repeat of the pattern of putting suicide off until I don't feel like it anymore. That the delay is externally caused just makes it easy to excuse myself. But it never goes away and will return again. And the longer this goes on, the bleaker or more pathetic the life forecast gets. I have no idea what I'll do when I don't do it this time.

I have no options and don't particularly want any. There's nothing I want to do. I don't desire anything. Music is completely done and over with. There was a reason why I quit my job, and if I went back because of a failed suicide attempt, I'd hit that reason again! I don't even want friends, certainly not an intimate. It's all empty with foreseeable ends. I know it's just me, but I don't see the worth people see in all that.

I have a lot of little enjoyments that make me happy and smile, but those things are more things to smile and let go of, realizing that the most important thing is to not attach to anything. Even floating and drifting along not attaching to anything, bank accounts don't last forever. Bank accounts should not be attached to.

I consider the concept that maybe I have been a Tibetan monk in past lives. I play with the possibility that I'm currently in a string of unordained lifetimes in such a way like they're an extended version of the Tibetan tradition in a single lifetime whereby a monk returns his robes and goes back to the outside world as a continuing part of the training.

So why do I expect no resonance to Tibet when I go? I don't think any one way or another for sure, but possibly my resonant reactions to the lands of Japan and Arizona were the result of an emotional attachment to those places in past lives. Whereas in Tibet, first of all as a monk, the practice of non-attachment is foremost. And maybe there just wasn't an emotional response to the land.

Under the theory of reincarnation, I doubt Japan and the southwestern U.S. desert were the only places I've been reborn, but rather countless places all over the world. But it would make sense to me that in the human sentient experience that karmic resonance, despite being the only thing that carries over from lifetime to lifetime, still fades or gets conditioned differently in another given lifetime. Maybe Japan and the desert were recent, Tibet a bit further back. Just throwing ideas at the wall.

I use the wording "human sentient experience" specifically because I'm striving to get out of this "human chauvinist" view of the universe, that somehow the universe was made for our journey and that we are somehow special and universal and will always be around. Even when our world dies, we believe we will have found ways to venture out into the universe and continue on in some super-inflated form of "manifest destiny".

It just doesn't make sense. When I mention spiritual or metaphysical theories and hypotheses that can't be proven and really can't be argued either, I often fall back on saying these things just make sense to me. Humanity continuing on in perpetuity just doesn't make any sense. It seems an absolute impossibility despite the idealism of some our great modern astronomers and cosmologists for whom I have a great deal of respect.

For me, we're on this human/spiritual journey, and we go through the cycle/circle of reincarnation and some people eventually got it in their existence that existence isn't all there is to it and strove towards something beyond it, and once achieving going beyond it, called it "enlightenment". It was something discovered by several seekers in different cultures. In Buddhism, it became the main point. In Christianity, its expression in the Gnostic Gospels was labeled heresy and stamped out and replaced by a hierarchy of  thought and spiritual control modeled on the Roman Empire and succeeded it. In Islam it became the marginal sect of Sufism.

But enlightenment wasn't created for the human sentient experience. I think it's just some natural, primordial state of energy that transcends the human experience in ways we can't normally conceive or perceive. It's something that "powerful". "Powerful", of course, being a subjective human interpretation, and is nothing about what it is.

Enlightenment doesn't care if we're enlightened or not. The universe doesn't care whether we're enlightened or not. Some people just happened to stumble upon it and tried to teach it to others.

So for me it's important to approach these concepts assuming that being human isn't necessarily part of the equation. It's convenient for us since it's the form we've taken on this planet, but it didn't necessarily need to happen. Let's presume the dinosaurs never knew of enlightenment and they ruled this planet for some 180 million years. Or let's say humanity as a species attains enlightenment, it's not going to stop us from becoming wiped out if a 10-mile asteroid hits the Earth.

I guess this is basic Buddhism – nothing whatsoever should be attached to. Including our concept of the human form. (or especially our concept of the human form).

I got invited to go on a trip to Tibet the last week of September, coming back in early October. That certainly sideswipes plans while changing nothing. It will be difficult getting through these next two weeks until the trip without the possibility that the next day may be the day.

But it's Tibet. Anywhere else I would have declined, but with Tibetan Buddhism influencing so much of my thinking and my path, I feel it compelling to take this opportunity to stand on the land, even though it's currently occupied by the Chinese who continue to commit cultural genocide there. I've never felt a need to go to Tibet. I don't expect the feeling I had in Japan or in the Sonoran desert of Arizona that something was very familiar about the land itself. Like an energy emanating from it that told me it once was home.

It isn't lost on me that things like this constantly come up in my life to sabotage any plans towards suicide, and perpetuate the notion that I will, in fact, live forever. Even when I grow old and it really is time for my natural death, I'll simply not die out of habit. Something will have come up.

Not a ride, but exploring the new bridge in Taipei County west of Taipei and it's catwalk access:

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 3:14 p.m. - They anticipated high usage by cyclists and made ramps instead of stairs leading up to the catwalks! Looking east across the Danshui River at Taipei and its landmark buildings.

I'm trying to wind things up for another attempt. It's a daily gauge thing, but day by day I just haven't been feeling it. I'm not worried I won't. Nothing's different, the feeling will come again.

Any time in August would've been ideal. My landlord, my cousin's uncle on her mother's side, wouldn't have received September's rent, but that wouldn't ring bells because he knows I'm responsible and would let it slide. What would get his attention is that around mid-September I'm supposed to fill out the gas gauge reading on a slip of paper the gas department posts on the front door of the building every other month.

That's not something my landlord can let slide and he'd be contacted about it. I imagine he'd come by my room and knock on the door. Getting no answer, he'd try the door and find it unlocked (he'd have the key with him anyway since he still needed to get the gas reading from in my room). He'd enter and get the reading and post it, no harm. Questions raised that didn't need to be answered immediately.

With the arrival of October, another month's rent will have been missed, but what would really do it is that my parents are coming to Taiwan in October and they will not be able to contact me. They may just be really pissed thinking I was ignoring them and not answering my phone, but then inquiry about where I was would get to my cousin who would call her uncle, who would inform them what he knew – two months rent not paid and gas reading not done. I wasn't and hadn't been around.

From there it would be a mystery with no one able to fill in the spaces, and I can't speculate on anyone's reaction at that point. Maybe they call my workplace and find out I haven't been there since January. Surprise, surprise. The most likely scenario is that they will think I dissed them, be pissed, spend their time in Taiwan and leave to go back to the U.S. thinking whatever happened will be sorted out later.

Quite honestly, if I'm not in anyone's lives, I don't think anyone can complain if I'm not on the planet. And I'm not in anyone's lives in the profoundest sense. Giving everyone I know all benefit of the doubt, I am not in their lives. There is not a person who would be directly affected by my not being on the planet. Anyone I know, if they hadn't heard from me in days, weeks, months, years, they wouldn't notice.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2:33 p.m. - On Taipei Bridge crossing the Danshui River into Taipei County. I live on the east side of Taipei (although there is further east) and the most direct way to get to Taipei County to the west is to ride on Minsheng Rd. the length of Taipei to the riverside bikeway access point there. Taipei Bridge is a continuation of Minquan Rd., so it's the equivalent of a city block to the north to get to the bridge ramp.

2:49 p.m. - The bikeway, riding north on the left bank of the Danshui River towards Bali, passes a garbage collection center. It's quite a stench. But if you can see past the garbage, there is Beitou District and lovely the Yangmingshan range. I'm not positive if Qixing peak, the highest, is visible; a sliver of it might just be peeking up dead center of the photo. I think the three bumps at the left may be the Datun peaks (I think there are a collection of them), most visible from Danshui and Bali townships.

2:58 p.m. - The Danshui River is a tidal river, so even though there is this basin where the Keelung River drains just a bit to the north, you can get water levels like this. We even had tropical storm rains a few days earlier, too.

True Legend (2010, Hong Kong)

The first thing to delineate about this Hong Kong martial arts film is whether the name Yuen Woo-ping means anything to you. If it does, then I need say no more – definitely go out and rent this film. It may not be his greatest work, it may not be a great film, but it's Yuen Woo-ping!

If it doesn't, then . . . why the hell not? A light of recognition often dawns on people's faces when they hear he did the action choreography for "The Matrix" and "Kill Bill" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".

But people into Hong Kong cinema know he's much, much more than that. In fact, I only know him as the foremost martial arts choreographer and innovator from back in the late 80s/early 90s. Before that, he was a director for a long-ass time, before which he was an actor.

The film is about a good guy and his evil twin adoptive bad guy brother. Good guy's father adopted bad guy and his sister after killing their father for misusing his martial arts powers. The big character flaw in this film, which I think is funny but easy to overlook, is how good guy never notices that the person he slaps on the back and goes to war with and smiles to and calls "brother" hates his fucking guts!

After parting ways for many years, bad guy, having perfected the same martial art power his father was accused of misusing, comes looking for good guy and his father to avenge his father's death. And as the spawn of evil, he has become evil incarnate himself. Complicating matters is that good guy is now married to bad guy's sister and has a young son.

After being defeated and nearly killed in their encounter, good guy begins a long road to recovery which nearly drives him mad, transforming him from the clean-cut army general/wushu master into a long-haired, mangy, beggar-like apparition, thus the English title "Beggar Su".

The martial arts choreography is everything anyone would expect from Yuen Woo-ping, although there is a bit more CGI in the fantasy sequences. It's slick and looks fake, but Yuen Woo-ping action sequences from the late 80s/early 90s also had fantasy sequences that were stylized and just had to be accepted; same goes here.

I'm going to recommend this film and give it a fresh 8 out of 10 tomatoes. It's not a film that will change anyone's lives, but fans of Yuen Woo-ping have a high likelihood of liking it, and for others who are just fans of the genre should get a taste of Yuen Woo-ping and won't be disappointed by the martial arts sequences.



Zoom Hunting (2010, Taiwan)

This local film was a bit of twist for me. I don't think I've seen any other local film that was an outright "suspense/thriller". Taiwan mostly does drama or indie or high concept, but not basic suspense/thriller, with plot, mystery and twists, and isn't my favorite of genres.

The film is about 2 sisters who live together, one a professional photographer, the other a professional novelist. The photographer is kind of a free spirit, the writer is a little more tightly wound.

The photographer also engages in black and white film art photography, and upon impulse to photograph a bird that flies into her apartment and then out, she catches on film what turns out to be an affair in an apartment some ways away (she is ostensibly using a pretty powerful zoom lens).

What initially is just a curiosity for her turns out to be more involved as the sister turns out to be involved with what's going on in that apartment, with early hints in her narration of the affair happening on screen.

I was intrigued by the narrative style, as verbal narration wasn't dependent upon witness of the events. What we know isn't dependent upon what a character knows, and sometimes we see in a string of events what a character doesn't. The film's narrative is always completely in the information the filmmaker is giving and doesn't depend on what a character knows or doesn't know. Pretty cool because it can be regarded as high concept.

The premise of the film is pretty cool, albeit it took a second viewing for everything to fall into place. It's not my favorite of genres so I want to give it a low fresh 6 out of 10 tomatoes rating, but for fans of suspense/thrillers (mind you this isn't as intense as Hollywood films of the same genre) I would rate it 7 out of 10 tomatoes. But because of the final scene, which is a recreation of one of the first scenes in the film with a twist, I think I could give it an 8 out of 10 tomatoes.

There's just something about that last scene which gives the film more meaning. It's like at the start of the film, we have a blank slate. Innocence. Then during the course of the film things get ugly, suspicions are raised, feelings of betrayal arise. But then that return scene, even with the twist, brings the film back to benign innocence. I thought it was well played.

I complained about a flashback sequence in an earlier film, and I wondered whether I was too stupid to realize it was a flashback. But no, I do think the flashback in that film was clumsily done. There was a flashback in this film and the filmmaker knew how to do it to make it clear it was a flashback.