RED

If I wanna go see a movie myself, I would never pick this one. First of all, I am not a fan of Bruce Willis. Secondly, I am not that into action movies. Action is fine, but is just never my first choice.

But school has just started, and there are not that many choices around. J does not read Chinese, so any non-English is out. He asked me to have a look what is available, and the only 2 choices are ‘the town’ and RED.

The town features robbery (ouch) and some romances (yeah), but I’m not familiar with the cast (ouch). RED is action movie (ouch), but I’m more familiar with the cast, Helen Mirren (yeah), Morgan Freeman (yeah), and Bruce Willis (kindof ouch actually). Touch choice, and I still decided to see RED.

It turns out to be a very good choice. The story is kind of stupid of course, but it is very funny. After around 30 minutes, I was totally relaxed, entertained, and had a very good laugh when gunshots were not meant to see blood, but a way to to funny. I was especially impressed with the way Bruce talks, and he appears to be a gentle and romantic. J had a good time too. Good choice.

Drapes Up

I finally decided to make some changes to my apartment.

For a long while, I thought it was a temporary place, and I would be moving very soon. I kept the place clean, got some furniture to make it liveable, but would not buy anything to make it more comfortable. I always told friends that I’m going back, or I’m going back to my place, but I never said home. 

It is hard to explain the way the brain works, like people really cannot learn to cherish something until they almost lose it.

I have been looking for a job, off and on, for a while. I had an offer back in September. The company is located in Nantou county. The distance and location makes it impossible for me to commute from Taipei. Of course during the interview, location was not a problem, commute was not a problem, relocation was not a problem.  I was so determined that nothing, and nothing could stop me from taking this positin. I negotiated with the HR, asked for a couple of weeks to clean up my mess in Taipei and was about to get ready to go south to find another place to live. That’s when I had a second thought.

I felt the urge to stay.

Yes, urge. It was so strong that I almost could not bear the thought of moving out at all, out of this apartment, or out of Taipei. Yes, I know I am renting, and do not have the ownership to this place, but I did not want to leave. I declined the offer.

I sought to change.

The owner had large wide windows built in the living room. However, they could not seem to find blinds that fits the windows, so the current blinds installed are few inches shorter than the windows. It would be fine during the day; however, I never felt I had complete privacy at night when the living room was bright, and the neighbors across the narrow alley could see right through. I want drapes, and always wanted to have drapes up to block some sunlights in the winter and add some colors to the living room. The blinds are dusty and in very bad shape. They are bolted right in to the concrete, so I have no way to remove and clean them.

That’s when friends came to help.

Those helps are just little talks over supper or over MSN, or some other fancy modern online chat. One advised me to buy those removeable 3M tape to put on the wall to support the drapes, and be sure to get the strongest kind. Some told me there is a new store right by IKEA that sells all kinds of Japanese merchanise. I went to supermarket, looked at the 3M tape, wrote down the maximum weight that they could support. I went to the Japanese store, and they have a very good selection of drapes, well marked with the dimensions, installation guides, accessories displayed.

I did not get everything right in the first place. Had to go back and forth because I did not get the dimensions right, because I forgot to buy the rings for the drapes, because I could not wait for the tape to set and put the drapes up right away and the whole thing ended up collapsing and made an astounding noise. A friend came to my aid and showed me how to use epoxy to glue the hook to the wall properly.

At least now the living room has a new look. Something new, something refreshing, something different, something comfortable, and something homey. After nearly 2 years, I’m making it home.

Painting

If you have been to my place, you most likely have seen this paiting hanging on the wall in my bedroom. If you are a religious person, you probably know who this person is with just a very quick look at this painting.

But I am not.

I traveled out of Taiwan for the very first time in October 1997. The destination was El Paso, TX. Strange location, eh? Well, it was a business trip. The products that the company sent out to US markets had a serious flaw. We, a group of 4, had to fly to El Paso, where distribution center was located, to facilitate rework process.

For a first timer, 2 months was a long trip being trapped in the middle of the desert without sufficient supply of anything I was familiar with, but the experience was also totally exhilarating. The sky was always blue and beautiful. El Paso was very spread out, so sky was so wide. I was able to see sky totally dark on one side of the horizon and bright on the other, a very refreshing experience for a city boy like myself. Air was warm and dry, so sitting in the sun for lunch was comfortable after a few hours’ hard work. We even went out of town for short trips on weekends. It turned out to be the longest business trip I have ever done as of now, and the chance to be out for the weekend is still unforgettable.

I found this portrait on the way to Carlsbad Cavern National Park. We had a long drive (ok, in our definition, 4 hours’ drive was long), and had to stop for a rest. We looked around the gifts store, and this painting caught my attention.

There were two of them sitting on the floor with dusts all over them. It looked like something that the owner was about to trash or return to vendor. I liked the wood frame, the black cloth, the contrast between the cloth and the paint, and that a few simple strokes were enough to show this person is in great pain. I asked a worker to have a look, and he likes it too, but let me pick my favorite, as these two do not look identical, so I guessed they were both hand painted.

It has been with me ever since, except the 4 years when I lived in California, and I have always placed it in my bedroom, right about the head board.

2 months ago, a friend came to visit. I dutily showed him around the apartment and mentioned how much I liked this painting. He responded courteously with his arts background in the school and said, he had been to Europe and been exposed to lots of arts, art history, and had a good collection of paintings himself. His best guess was that it was a painting of Jesus on the cross. The wide bands on the upper right depicted the cross, and the few strokes on the lower right showed the arm. The technique to paint on cloth is quite hard, and the artist seemed quite competent and confident when he made it. It could be a good collection and it could be worth something.

Something? I think the tag price was about 15 or 16 USD, and because it was so covered with dust, the owner (an older lady) gave me a discount, so I paid around 11 or 12 USD. I love it, so it is not going away, and I want to see it on a daily basis, and it will be on the wall. The question is, this is a painting of Jesus, so I guess it should probably stay somewhere else other than the bedroom, but until I find a better location for it, it stays where it is, for now.

I am so glad that the friend had a chance to come over, and I finally realize what this painting is all about, after so many years.

Corn Chowder

Chowder is not available in regular restaurants here. We get corn soup in steak house. Corn soup is normally creamy corn cooked in broth, starched, placed in the all-you-can-eat section of the steak house. We may always go for pricey restaurants and get a set of meal with a choice of either salad or soup. That would be a nice choice, but definitely not something I’d like to do on a regular basis.

 

I searched on youtube, and found a recipe that I really like. And according to the video, corn chowder is surprisingly easy to make. All ingredients are readily available in grocery store here. I always feel that the starch used in the corn soup here is like a thick makeup on a woman’s face. It tastes good, but the starch makes it harder to actually enjoy the flavor of the corn, and am really happy with this startch-free chowder.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of chopped onion
• 1 cup of diced potato
• 1 tsp of olive oil
• 1 cup of milk
• 0.5 can of creamy corn
• salt and pepper

Heat the pan and saute onion with olive oil until it is golden brown. Put onion and potato in a sauce pan, add half a cup of water, and simmer all the ingredients for 15 minutes until potato is cooked and tender.

Then add creamy corn and milk to the sauce pan. Heat the whole thing until milk is warm enough to taste. Add salt and pepper. Serve with cracker and ice tea.

I used low fat milk, so the chowder is a bit watery. Not bad. The video said half-and-half could be used if creamier soup is desired. Cream is expensive here, as we do not have big dairy industry in Taiwan; however, I’ll get a litre of cream sometime and probably use half a cup of milk and half a cup of cream instead, and see how it turns out. I have to, of course, come up with something else to finish up the cream before it goes bad.

The original recipe also calls for bacon grease to saute the onion and chopped bacons placed on top of the soup. I did without the bacon part, and it turns out just as nice. I love this recipe, and am sure that I’ll use this recipe a lot this winter.

Souvenir from Van Gogh Museum

Last night I met J for a movie. He brought a few things for me. 3 books of Jack Reacher and souvenirs from his trip to Europe.

It was interesting to see the connections sometimes when what he said would be exactly what I was about to ask, and that makes the friendship a little bit more fun. I was browsing the books and was about to ask him if I have to return the books when he said I could keep one of the 3, but have to return the other 2, as he plans to send them to his sister. I was about to ask, because nowadays I really don’t keep novels anymore. Instead of loving the books and keeping them on the bookshelf for the rest of my life without the time to read them again, I would much prefer to give them to friends if they are interested, and I encourage them to do the same if they turn out to like it. So I told J that he do not have to return the Jack Reacher book I gave him last week, and know it will end up being at his sister’s at least.

J just returned from his very first trip to Europe a while ago. We went through his photos together last week. He was really mesmerized by the geometry of buildings, doors and windows, and tooks lots and lots of photos of them. I happened to have done just the same when I was in Beijing in April. So I volunteered to upload mine for him to have a look. We had a good laugh.

He presented the sourvenirs he got for me while he was in Amsterdam. A box of chocolate, a postcard, and a refrigerator magnet from Van Gogh Museum. They are absoltely right souvenirs for me. We were then talking the stereotypes we have for each artist. For Van Gosh, we think of short strokes he is famous for in his self portraits and irises, but we are rarely exposed to his other talents and how versatile he was in painting. He said there are more then 300 Van Gosh’s paintings in that museum, and I was totally jealous that he got to be there to see them all.

I confess to him. From the photos, Nice looks nice, Cambrige looks gorgeous, Paris looks great, but I am only jealous of 2 things: he has been to Van Gogh museum and Musee d’Orsay, and for me, Musee d’Orsay is definitely the Mecca of arts.

Amphetamine

This movie was never in my radar until last Friday when a friend of mine sent me the link to its trailer when it was released. I love the music so much and just have to play the trailer again and again to enjoy it. A very bold way to do the trailer this way actully with music only, not even one single line is said, no car racing, and not even any explosion. Maybe because this movie caters to only a smaller communicty compared with those hollywood ones. I saw one movie from the same director. It was good but not impressive. It seemed to me that the director was more obsessed in telling his own story and had so much fun doing it, than telling a story that relates to the general public. That’s fine though, as this is then called art.

Not sure if I’ll see this movie or not, but if I do, it is for the score, and attention will be paid to assess if buying the soundtrack would be worth it.

Television

 

Sometimes I live in the conflicts between Chinese values and western values. Having said that, I think it is necessary to point out what Chinese values and western values mean.

Chinese values mean seeing the family members as a whole entity and care for one another very much, to a point that privacy or personal willingness could be invaded. Western values mean quite the oppisite, privacy or personal willingness highly respected, to a point that there seems to be just pure cold politness among friends or family.

Of course, there is some sutble details that both values share. It is beyond my discussion here (ok, western values needed here).

What happened was my parents’ TV broke. They never mentioned it over the phone, so I did not know that until this past March when I went back to Tainan to visit them. My mother said, she tried to hit the TV, reconnected the cables, but nothing helped. This TV is very old. My brother bought it when he was in college, and he is 42 this year. Do the math. The technician came, sighed, and explained how hard it is to get components for this TV now. This is just an old 20” CRT TV, so it is really not worth it to have it fixed.

So get a new TV then. That’s what everyone would think. Not my mother (and my father did not have a say in this matter). She claims this TV is still good to watch. Mother, red color is the only thing I can make out on the TV!

So what should I do? I think the more traditional Chinese way would be for me to go to electronic store, pick a new one, and have it sent to my parents’ house, knowing my parents would not be able to understand any item in the spec and would be quite clueless to tell one make from another. Honestly, there is nothing wrong with it, and I expect my parents to have that smug look when they have visitors, and the poor visitors would feel compelled to compliment how nice and considerate their son is.

However, I hope they get what they really want. I hope they understand I care about it and want them to get something that really suits their needs. That is also the way I would like to be treated. So I told my mother, the TV is really old, and it would be probably more expensive to have it repaired than to get a new one. It may be time for it to go. There are few ways to get a new one. Do you want me to pick one myself and have it shipped to you, or you’d like to visit the stores and do the shopping yourself, or I can even go with you to the stores, so we can have some discussions together? Let me know once you decide which way to go for.

Not surprisingly, my dear mother chose the fourth option. She kept the TV.

Mid June I went back to visit them again, and saw that red-only TV again. I decided to do it the pre-emptive way. I started a family activities.

That was when Toy Story 3 hit the theater. I told them how popular 3D movies are nowadays, and I always had a good time watching Toy Story 1 and 2. We could go watch the version dubbed with Chinese, so they won’t have any problem understanding the conversation.  After that, we can grab a few bites to eat, and then go to department store to see if they find any TV interesting. And they agreed.

So my parents, my sister, niece and I went together. It turned out they enjoyed the movie very very much, and were so excited about the 3D effect. Believe it or not, they also enjoy having something to drink in the theater and some popcorns.

Anyhow, we visited the department store afterwards, and my dear mother was ONLY interested in Sony. The old TV is a Sony Trinitron, and my mother loved it. I swear she was smiling the whole time when we were in Sony area. When we suggested having a look at Toshia, or Panasonic, she showed little interest, and refused to even have a look when we asked her to try Samsung or LG.

At that point, decision is easy to make. 32 inches is the smallest size now. She does not need all the bells and whistles, so the cheapest model will do. Since my sister was there in the department store as well, I asked my brother later to see if he is ok to chip in, and he agreed. So all 3 kids chipped in to get that Sony Bravia 32”.

I guess it is neither Chinese way or western way, or, I tried to blend them together. Though it was a waste of time from March to June, but still I’m happy that I did not hurry to store in March and pick something that she does not like, which I could have done if I had been few years younger. She even asked to buy the TV from the store which she called  for help when her TV broke. She feels comfortable with their service, and feels good to do business with them.

Now my mother is happy.