Hm. I guess this is a follow-up to my previous post. I responded to my former Mandarin teacher and we met up for an afternoon at a Starbucks. We met wearing masks, but abandoned them once we sat down. Seating is restricted in public places with seats marked off as not to be used to enforce social distancing, but we managed to snag a table just as other people were leaving. We discussed the current CCP virus situation and compared notes and she was impressed by how on top of the information I was, which gave me reassurance that the English-language news I'm getting is accurately mirroring what's in the Taiwanese press. And actually most English-language news is merely translated from local reports; they mostly don't have their own reporters in the field. 

We reflected on how we're in one of the safest places to be in the world, thanks to quick thinking and action by the government and fundamental mistrust of anything the Chinese Communist Party says (assumption that they're lying is just as fundamental as any intelligent American assuming Trump has no idea what he's talking about or doing (ironically, except about China)). One thing Taiwan is missing out on is reports of cleaner air and waterways and nature re-asserting itself once disruptive human activity is curtailed. Our traffic, noise and air pollution is for most part the same as usual.

We agreed that the government hasn't been absolutely 100% PERFECT with two slip-ups that could've gotten out of control and we were just lucky they didn't. In early April, Taiwan has a tomb-sweeping holiday where people are supposed to go to the graves of their ancestors and clean them up and pay respects (remembering both where you came from and where you're going, maybe). Social distancing went out the door and the government wasn't fervent enough about telling people to be vigilant and there was a public worry that asymptomatic cases could have been spread during all that contact.

The second was a navy vessel returning from a mission and it turned out there was an outbreak onboard with sailors allowed into the general population without proper quarantine upon arrival. The government quickly gathered information on all the places every sailor went throughout the country and created a map of hotspots that they released to the public, informing them if they had been at those places at certain times, they needed to monitor their health for any sign of the CCP virus. Every contact that any of the sailors had, numbering in the thousands, were contacted and instructed to self-quarantine. As the military should have heightened responsibility, appropriate reprimands were issued (actually I think the defense minister requested to be reprimanded).

To date, only sailors aboard the ship have been confirmed with the CCP virus, 31 in all bumping the total number of cases in Taiwan to 429. Since no one in the general public appears to have contracted it from them, I consider the navy case a closed system, and the number of cases in Taiwan to reasonably be considered 398, under an artificial benchmark of 400. 

I mentioned I didn't expect to hear from my sister-in-law until next year, but she sent one of her usual emails and it was substantive enough that it will take several months for me to respond, putting our correspondence back on its twice-a-year schedule.

And out of the blue, my second oldest brother, the one who seems to want nothing to do with us, or me at least, but will act appropriately when he has to, sent me a YouTube video that his son made of himself playing a violin trio by/with himself. My brother had mentioned he was learning bassoon, but never mentioned violin. I will respond appropriately with genuine praise and appreciation of the performance, but what may be interesting is this is the first time anyone has shown interest in me showing interest in the kids. Obviously if I show no interest in the kids, I have no right to complain about any of their lack of communication with me. Their kids are their lives, and if I show no interest in the kids, I don't deserve any attention. 

Before this, neither of my brothers or the aforesaid sister-in-law nor my cousin Audrey have tried to interest or prompt me about their children. Quite the opposite, whereas parents would seem to want to brag about their kids and involve relatives in their lives, I've gotten nothing from them about their kids. Audrey is especially egregious since she knows how much I love her children, but they've totally forgotten who I am and the last time I saw them they couldn't even acknowledge having known me. It isn't missed on me that no one has provided updates on the kids for me to respond to. Or it may be me. Similar to how I've given the impression to people I know in Taipei that I don't want to hang out, I may have projected to them that I have no interest in their kids, even though I've always responded to any news they gave about them. Bottom line, I'm not complaining, no fault to them. Things just are as they are, and of course there's my credo not to be something to someone and then disappear, which is my perpetual end-game. 

Finally, what I said about that French guy, I recently discovered a place selling Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches. Vietnam, of course, was once a French colony and banh mi sandwiches famously use French bread and the quality of the sandwich depends on the quality of the bread (i.e., requires a French person's seal of approval). I know my friend appreciates banh mi so I shot him an out-of-the-blue email about the place and he responded that he would be going there the next day with his family, describing his infant daughter as a French bread monster. He suggested meeting up for lunch sometime soon, and per what I said in my last post, I guess I have to accept.

Why have people been randomly and meaninglessly contacting me lately? It has nothing to do with the CCP virus, I'm sure, and even less about concern, god forbid, since none has been expressed.

The first was my cousin Audrey who, last I heard, was living in Switzerland. I know nothing about what she's doing now and don't even remember the last time we had contact. Our back-and-forth via Facebook Messenger (which is not communication as far as I'm concerned, but just throwaway chat) was: 

I am back to Taiwan now

How was I to reply to that on a throwaway chat forum? "Good for you"? "Good to know"? "So? Why are you telling me?"? Note the absence, what she's not saying. She's not trying to get my interest, she's giving me no real information, she's not asking anything from me, she's not prompting anything, she's just throwing out a raw fact without any indication what she expects in response to that raw fact. If she used proper grammar "back in Taiwan", I could have just assumed she was just visiting, but "back to Taiwan", if that's what she meant, suggests something more permanent. My response couldn't be much more than her message, that would be rude:

Permanently? lol. 14-day quarantine?

Her: 14 days quarantine 

I gave her no more than she gave me, so perhaps it was appropriate for her to throw nothing back at me. At least we had a meeting of the minds. But she didn't even answer my first question. If she's moved back permanently, that's significant to me and I'd inquire further even if getting information from her would be like pulling teeth. If not, messaging me at all was pointless and she just put an exclamation mark on how unimportant we are to each other. It's possible she didn't understand it. Or as evidenced by her response to emails in the past, it's more likely she didn't even read it. Anyway, I decided to give her a little bit more to see if I could prise why she was contacting me:

Well good, most imported cases are coming from Europe, so just do it. If I had a car I'd visit, but no unnecessary travel these days. Epidemics spread when people move. 

Her response finalized this was a meaningless exchange and ended it right there and then:

Yes

Next was an email from a classmate in my first Mandarin class when I came to Taiwan in 2006. We've only had the sparsest of contacts over the years and have no idea about anything about each other. She sent to me and another classmate who still lives in Taipei: How are you both doing? 

What the hell is that? Is that how kids communicate these days? And she's not even a kid, she's a lawyer the last I heard. And what did she expect in response to an email out of nowhere basically saying: 'Tsup, dude?. In polite company, if I'm contacting someone from whom I haven't heard in a long while and wasn't really that close to in the first place (it was a three-month class and she left early to go to law school), you at least include a greeting (Hey guys,) and you ask some directed question to show your interest (how ya'll doin' with the corona virus), and you say something about yourself to give some context and also something to respond to (I just quit my job, I got married, I have cancer, I'm in *city/country*).

An appropriate response to her email I think would've been Could be better or wazzaaaap, like in the old Bud commercials. Actually 'Tsup, dude? would also have worked appropriately as a response. Instead I waited a few days to see if the other person responded and then deleted the email. That was just rude as far as I was concerned. Mind you, the other person on the email, a French guy, I haven't heard from in years, but if it struck my fancy I'd contact him to get a bite to eat, and likewise if he contacted me to meet up I'd respond accordingly. We've had much more substantive contact in the past and nothing has been lost.

The third person contacting me is pretty much as insubstantial but warranted a polite reply. We hung out for just a short time after meeting way back in 2010 before she moved abroad; it was fun, nothing bad happened, we exchanged music collections on hard drive (which I've mentioned has become a bit of a music listening nightmare, but that she even referenced as a prompt for her message, listening to Pearl Jam that I had given her). I never unfriended her on Facebook. We had a short exchange on Messenger but unlike the previous person it was a proper exchange. It was just random and unnecessary. But nice. And keeps her on the radar. I met her through the aforementioned French guy.

Finally, different from the others, my old Mandarin teacher emailed me. We saw each other just about a year ago when my sister-in-law's sister visited Taiwan in that disastrous meet-up. And of course I'll respond favorably to meeting up with her. There's nothing unusual or meaningless about her contacting me. Finally, someone normal. 

Actually in January, I think my old college friend Madoka tried to engage in an email exchange, perhaps trying to revive something of our old connection, but that failed. I tried to respond appropriately to keep it going, but I think there's just something about the way I communicate or what I communicate that kills it for other people. I have no problem taking all the blame for that.

And my sister-in-law sent an email during the Oscars because of the Korean thing (Parasite won best picture) and we shot a few emails back and forth until I think maybe she realized she's only "supposed" to send me two emails per year at six months intervals and me replying around the middle of those six months. That was the pattern I had observed from a few years back. The exchange we were having seemed like what normal email exchanges are like: an email is sent and if it's something interesting you want to respond to, you do. And that keeps going until it plays out. My sense about our exchange was that she realized she maxxed her quota of emailing me and stopped. I didn't think it was done and even started a draft with something that I thought would be interesting to her, but then that was all. I don't expect to hear from her until next year.

Mind you, I'm not complaining at all. I'm just describing my observations. It's sinking in that I'm really not all that likable in any respect, and I'm not trying to be likable or reaching out. My Mandarin teacher even wrote "If you don't mind hanging out with people", indicating that even to her my countenance expresses I don't want to hang out with people. That French guy probably feels the same. I would hang out with them, I just don't communicate that to them, so no fault to them.

WordsCharactersReading time

I finally bought a face mask. Nobody cared once I started wearing the mask. It's not the kind being rationed and people are lining up for out the doors of national health-affiliated pharmacies when "apps" tell them they're available. Not surgical nor "PPE", but the kind that folk all around Asia wore regularly pre-CCP virus because of pollution that are sold at any convenience store. I figured those all would have been bought up so I didn't even look, but I started spotting them and figured better than nothing and bought one.

Good timing, too, as the government just announced that face masks are now required on all public transportation. It was a bit of a surprise announcement because Taiwan is still not that bad off. As of April 1, face masks were required on the High Speed Rail and the TRA national rail system, but originally the government was considering requiring face masks on all Taipei buses and the MRT on April 9 when it was forecast that Taiwan's supply of face masks would allow for people to buy 9 masks every 14 days.

I'm not sure why they suddenly decided to require face masks on public transpo and pushing "social distancing" more aggressively, but it's not a bad idea. On one hand, I don't think it's necessarily necessary. Our numbers don't really require it. All cases are still being traced and monitored and most are imported cases that are being discovered in quarantine. New domestic cases have mostly been able to be traced to contact with previously identified cases, so the threat of community spread is still low, albeit as present as anywhere in the world.

On the other hand I think it's a good idea just to keep people from getting complacent about Taiwan's success in slowing the spread. I've felt that going out in the past week. We have it under control, the danger is very low, I don't need to worry about it. But measures like this might be a reasonable, psychological way of keeping people vigilant that there's always a danger. I heard that South Korea also had the CCP virus contained early on, but then it took a single person, "patient 31", who belonged to a Christian cult that ignored the threat and precautions and sparked a spread that went out of control and infected thousands. No one can say that can't happen in Taiwan if we let our guard down, not just the government but the people.

Some western reporting on Taiwan's response (slightly outdated in terms of numbers, currently we have 355 cases, 5 deaths and 50 recovered and discharged):

There was also one by the BBC, but no one trusts the BBC (I meant that as a joke based on the satire Broadway show The Producers, but then).

My primary news sources are China in Focus and the far more snarkier and sarcastic China Uncensored. I've been trying to watch NBC Nightly News, but I've found their worldview to be annoyingly micro and emotional, and if that's the kind of news Americans are getting, it's woefully insulated and deflecting from the larger, global view. Yes, stories about the front-line medical health care workers is worthy, but . . . after a while I just find myself forward arrow skipping through most of it. And I'm already streaming at 1.75x speed to save time.