The Person I Made Myself to Be

As I further sorted through photos today, I found a few of myself taken when I was in my twenties, and while there is not much else to remind me of those years, I think this picture speaks volumes, perhaps more than the books on the shelves behind me. This was taken while I was at living at my parents' home during my final few months of staying in the U.K. before I moved back to Taiwan more or less permanently.
Between the ages of 20 and about 29 when this picture was taken, my friends generally associated me with my bicycle, which was almost my only form of transportation during those years (I was credited with biking 180 miles in one day to go and attend a summer Bible camp and then bike back home one week later, not just once, but three years running). Other people associated me with my books (as you can see I had quite a few of them), and in particular with my fanatical interest in things Chinese.At the age when this picture was taken, I should have been married, living in a semi-detached house somewhere in England, working as an accountant in some office every day, and just being normal like everyone else. However, for several years I had had a dream of going to Asia and of learning Chinese, and when I finally could not pass my final accounting exams, I just decided to take off anyway. My first plane ride ever landed me in Hong Kong, and one week later I was in Taiwan. After a year there and having promised friends and pastors, etc. that I would return to the U.K., I went back to the U.K. more or less penniless, and after feeling truly lost and at times more lonely than I could ever imagine, I managed to find a couple of fairly interesting jobs in accounting that helped me save up enough to get back to Taiwan again.
So instead of trying to solve people's tax problems in an accounting office in England, I was spending each day studying Chinese language and literature, and of course making a lot of new friends. Those early years in Taiwan were not that easy, but the longer I stayed, the more smoothly things went. At least I had the satisfaction of being in the place where I wanted to be.
Fast forwarding to today, I had an interesting time swimming today. I arrived slightly earlier this morning and swam 4,650 meters non-stop in about 1 hr 31 mins. Then after a few minutes' rest and a slow 100m warm-up, I raced my friend over 100m, which he won in about 1m 24s to my 1m 27.5s. Less than a minute later, I challenged him to a 50m race, and I won that doing it in 40s flat to his 41s or so. I am not good at sprints so I felt quite satisfied with that swim. I am continuing to see gradual improvements. Again, I am not sure why I am doing all this, but I am just trying to make sure I keep at it. It would be nice to get an ocean swim in some time.

Small Swimming Improvement Today

Today was not particularly eventful. I was a bit tired and woke up slightly later than usual. However, by hurrying up I got into the water by 6:27 am, and swam 4,000 meters in 1 hr 19 mins. Then I rested and chatted with my friend for a few minutes before the two of us raced over 100 meters. While my stroke had felt fairly good on the slower long distance swimming, on this short distance, I did not feel that up to it, and my flip turns were a little awkward, meaning that each time we turned my friend gained some ground. However, I went 1 min 27 secs to his 1 min 25 secs, which shows I improved slightly compared to recent swims when I could not really do better than 1 min 29 secs. So the small improvements are coming. All in all, I swam 4,250 meters today. Not bad since I had at the most 1 hr 30 mins in which to swim. There were also a few less people at the pool today. It rained fairly hard parts of last night, due to a nearby typhoon, which is enough to discourage quite a lot of the morning swimmers from coming.This month I have tended to be a little less disciplined with my work, have had a few distractions like trips up to Taipei, and have also got a little carried away with blogging. However, I think I am still processing quite a few things and so putting some things down in writing is quite good. I can't just be a machine all day long. My study room/office is still quite a mess, but I am gradually sorting and packing and arranging various things, and so eventually it will look nice.

Today I include a painting of a bird I copied from a book I was reading (at the age of 11), as well as a drawing of a toad family, that was the kind of thing I used to dream about when I was in elementary school. I don't think I ever gave the drawing a title. Maybe I should call it the "Psychedelic Toad House". In case anyone has noticed that I have included a photo of a "Psychedelic Rolls Royce" in the right column of my blog, this was the one that John Lennon of the Beatles had painted only a few miles from where I grew up. Originally black, the car was taken by John and/or his driver to an autoshop that had the equipment to spray paint cars. After discussing the colors, etc., the shop's boss commissioned some gypsies who were probably uneducated but at least had some imagination. Up to that time the Rolls Royce was usually driven by royalty or retired wealthy company directors, so when this multicolored version took to the streets it caused an uproar among the British public. One old woman was so incensed by it that she repeatedly hit it with her umbrella. Later the car was shipped to the US and eventually sold there for a cool US$2.3 million to an American. So when you think the change of color scheme ruined the car, just think of the huge return on the investment. It seems the British are well known for their eccentricities.

おもひでぽろぽろ Only Yesterday

My title today is that of one of my favorite anime movies by Hayao Miyazaki (おもひでぽろぽろ or "Only Yesterday" in English). More information in English about such movies can be found by clicking here. I realize that these movies are probably designed for a much younger audience, but besides being relatively easy to follow, they have been very helpful to me in learning more about the Japanese way of life and hearing the language spoken naturally (as opposed to what one hears on language tapes).
The lead character in the movie, Taeko, is currently 27 years old, but she is constantly having flashbacks to her youth when she was around 11 years old. This is referred to as nostalgia, although for someone my age it may possibly be referred to as dementia. Well, while I am still sane enough to write coherently, let me share one or two memories from my childhood that I "rediscovered" today while continuing to sort out my things.
Yesterday, I referred to my great uncle in Switzerland and to visiting him at the age of 11. I found a painting I painted on site of the chalet my family and I stayed at in Blonay, near Lausanne in Switzerland. I also found a drawing of a map of Switzerland which I mostly drew while in Switzerland. I spent one or two days with my great uncle and his wife, while my mother, grandmother and sister were taken by a cousin in her car for rides in the mountains. I was easily carsick (especially on those roads), and so I preferred to stay home. To me at the time, my uncle and aunt were getting on in years, and had not had children of their own, seemed fairly serious, and so I whiled away my time drawing things. There were no games or TV where they lived. However, I remember my great uncle as someone who took a lot of interest in me, and it is a pity I only met him on that one trip over there (as far as I can recall).
The other pictures are from a magazine that was published not long after I returned from about one month in Belgium where I attended a boys' summer camp at the age of 13. When I arrived there I understood French very well (having heard it most of my life from my mother and grandmother when she visited), but when I returned to England, I spoke so much French that I would even reply in French to people who spoke to me in English especially around Dover when I got off the ship from Ostend. I learned more about how to think and speak in French in those weeks than in all the years that I studied French in school.The above photo of me together with some boys and published in the local organization's magazine "Soleil Levant", a copy of which was sent to my grandmother, is actually a scene I remember well. The boy lying on the ground in the middle was about my age and someone I had befriended at the camp. Like most Belgians he spoke French and Flemish (akin to Dutch) fluently, although to my surprise no one at the camp, including the teachers, spoke any English. This boy spoke to me in French and so we could converse. However, the younger boys on the left only spoke to me in Flemish, and I did not understand a word. I don't think they had met anyone who did not speak Flemish.
As I thought about these pictures, it reminded me of how the boys at the camp referred to me as "l'Anglais". It is true that I was that to them, but in reality I was part Belgian (through my grandfather), part Swiss (through my grandmother), and the other half British (which was a mixture of English and Scottish). Had I lived some time on the continent and spoken French like a native speaker, I don't think people would have considered me to be English. It was only when I eventually arrived in Taiwan that people started asking me if I was French. The Chinese are very interested in trying to guess where people are from and they can easily tell the difference between an American and a European, not just in their mannerisms, but also in their looks.
If my parents had had more money and had been less tied down by the basic need for stable employment, I might have got to spend much more of my childhood in Europe. I often regret not having had that opportunity. Our children have had it much more than me, in that life for them so far has been almost equally divided between Taiwan and Hawai'i. They were able to hang out with their skateboarding friends in Hawai'i and speak the same variety of English as them, and they can equally hang out with the skateboarders in Taiwan and speak the same Chinese (Mandarin) as them. This, of course, has brought difficulty to them, in that it is hard for them to be really good at English so as to pass all the English exams needed for college in the U.S. Of course, had we moved back to the UK when they were younger, they might have become a lot more British, but that is another story. Hawai'i, while not home to any of us in the sense that we always had to pay rent wherever we stayed, was a great place for them to grow up, not just because of the weather, but because of the multiracial characteristics of the society. That is really one thing I like about Hawai'i. Maybe I'll have to write about Hawai'i as it is becoming more and more of a distant memory!
In case readers may think I am stuck reminiscing on the past, I still went swimming this morning. I swam 4,500 meters straight in 1hr 29mins, and then after five minutes in the jacuzzi raced my friend over 100m. I was just behind him, finishing in 1min 29secs. In all I covered 4,750 meters. I don't know where this is all leading, and that is something I am trying to work out.

Preserving One's Childhood in Writing

Things I wrote or drew in 1964, and a school photo taken around that time. I had forgotten about drawing the butterflies until I found them today. (Click on picture to enlarge)

This may sound like a strange title, and it arises because I am trying to sort out my things following our house move early this year. In the midst of the various things I and we as a family have accumulated over the years, there are some things that date back to early childhood. Unfortunately, I have very few photos of myself as a child, and given the improvements in camera technology, movies and digitalization, I am sure that all kids nowadays, including my own, have hundreds and thousands of photos or movie clips to remind themselves of earlier days. However, besides still having some of the stamps I collected as a child, I also have one hundred issues of a handwritten newspaper I wrote between the ages of 10 and 12, and also a few little notebooks in which I recorded some of the things that my much more imaginative mind at that time used to think about.
Issue No. 5 of Animal Life (it had eight pages). Also written in 1964. The picture can be enlarged by clicking on it.
In elementary school, I was a well above average student, although not the best and that used to bug me. I think it was because I often heard people say I could do better, but what was there really to do better at? At school at that time, subjects like arithmetic were not particularly challenging, and everything we studied in class was designed for kids. Interestingly, outside elementary school I was teaching myself zoology, having private Russian lessons, and writing my own newspaper series. I was in my own little world as it were, and sometimes I regret I did not just become a "normal" kid like everyone else and function more within society. I think there is a lot of truth in the view that our early years, however they are, shape us for the rest of life.
My interest in writing the newspapers started when I tried to form a club at school called the "Toad Club". Well, I guess it wasn't what the teachers would have recommended, but it did cause me to write a least one of those newspapers every week or so, and to handwrite the duplicate copies as printing in those days was really archaic. Photocopiers did not exist. Today I also found a notebook in which I wrote the names of all of the people who received copies of the newspaper and which editions. There were at least ten people over the two-year period and some received at least 30 issues. They were mostly classmates, all of whom I have lost touch with, as well as my Belgian grandmother and her brother, my great uncle, in Switzerland. While he spoke mostly French and German, he was most impressed with them. I met him and stayed with him in 1965 when writing these newspapers was at its height. He died suddenly two years later in 1967 in Lausanne.
The newspapers are not like a diary, so little is written about me. However, when looked at as a whole, they do reflect my worldview or at least the world I lived in at that time. In those years, my life revolved within a 5-mile radius of my parents' home in Surrey, England, except for the occasional contacts with relatives in continental Europe. I liked to write about animals and "country life" as I saw it, which tended to mean ponds and frogs, toads and newts. I liked to make up puzzles that my friends could do. I referred to some of the hit songs (like the Beatles) that were top of the charts at that time. I liked to write messages in code (with a corresponding table for converting the symbols into Roman letters) (reminds me of studying Japanese nowadays). I had little columns written by Polly the Parrot and Pip the Potato Squirt with their words of encouragement. Neither of my parents were writers like this. I just somehow developed the interest myself.

Issue Number 100. I was already in Secondary (Grammar) School then and was finally losing touch with my elementary school days. At the top in the middle is a badge for club members to wear.
What I feel I have learned from rediscovering these old newspapers is that people as they grow up have little to remind them of their childhood apart from photographs and memories. Memories are often sketchy in those early years as we get older, and for many of us, there are many unpleasant memories, like being scolded by a teacher who just wanted to be nasty to any defenseless kid, or being forced to learn what you were told to learn within a rigid education system instead of being taught how to learn what you wanted to learn for yourself at your own level and pace. One recommendation I would make to parents would be to encourage young children who like writing to write, and then to ensure that they preserve all these things. After almost 45 years have passed, they will be grateful for it.
I was not a good student of English within the formal educational establishment (I hated English lessons where we just read Shakespeare around the class). However, when it counted, such as when writing essays in high school and university (economics), I could write well. I gained much experience writing and editing magazines over the years. I have translated many a research paper from Chinese into publishable English. Now as I get my things at home in order, I want to move on, and focus more efforts on writing in Chinese, and eventually Japanese. There is no end to it. One day I want to do Ironman Japan and be able to speak Japanese well enough to converse with everyone there. If I get to that stage, I will smile a lot during the race. I will be happy in a way I never experienced before and I will finish before 10 pm.

今泉奈緒美！女子2連覇

Naomi Imaizumi (今泉奈緒美) wins Ironman Japan for the second consecutive time! Well, today many people in the triathlon world were following the events in Goto, Nagasaki, Japan, as several top contenders battled it out for a place on the podium and also a coveted slot for the Ironman World Championships to be held in Kona, Hawai'i in October.
I myself and many blogging friends and their friends in the US were hoping and in some ways expecting the US favorite, Bree Wee (ブリー・ウィー), to win the race. Bree has been improving by leaps and bounds in these last few years and has already had several impressive performances in just this past year. Bree beat Naomi by close to 15 minutes in the Hawai'i Ironman last year. By the way Bree has been improving, I don't think anyone who knew her had any doubt she would win. However, it did not quite work out that way, even though Bree went 9 hr 37 mins today compared to Naomi's 9 hrs 44 mins last year, when she won the ladies' race in Ironman, Japan. So what happened, and how did Naomi manage to storm to another victory in 9 hr 33 mins 59 secs? The answer is that I don't really know, and we will no doubt read the race reports tomorrow by the competitors themselves or other people.
Bree was leading on the bike after 50 kms, having benefited from a 5-minute plus lead on the swim over Naomi. However, Naomi's bike split was ten minutes faster than that of Bree, and Bree might have run about a minute faster than Naomi on the run. Naomi also "grazed her arm" falling off the bike early into her ride. While I think some of us would have thought that was it for Naomi, she seemed to catch fire and blazed the course. She must have been lucky only to suffer a "graze". The men's winner last year, Mr. Park, apparently had a much more serious injury early in the bike and was forced to withdraw from the race. Conditions were slippery in the hills.

今泉奈緒美！女子2連覇
今泉選手が、リードを保ち女子優勝。そしてアイアンマン・ジャパン ２連覇を達成しました！おめでとう！(9:33:59)
ハワイ在住 ブリー・ウィー ( Bree Wee) (USA) が女子２位となりました！(9:37:12)
3位はオーストラリアのサラ・ポレット (Sarah Pollett) (AUS) 9:54:30
オメデトウ！

It was really hard for me to decide who I wanted to win, not that my thoughts on the matter would have influenced the outcome. Since Bree is a personal friend, I really wanted her to win. However, I wanted her to actually have a race, and not more or less be handed the victory due to the other people not being good enough or else suffering misfortune. Since I have lived in Asia for much of my life, I have really wanted to see the Asian excelling in sports, especially in those sports like triathlon which tend to be dominated by Caucasians. For me it a real joy when a Korean wins at golf, or a Japanese wins a marathon, or a Taiwanese wins at something else.
I think the outcome of this Ironman Japan race today was that both ladies were true winners. Naomi held on up there in front, knowing that Bree would quickly take advantage of any weakness that she might reveal. Bree was less familiar with the course, and maybe lost some valuable minutes on the bike trying to play it safe rather than run the risk of a nasty crash. This was also Bree's first time racing in Japan, so it was all kind of a new experience. So all in all, it was a very close race. I hope both qualify for the Hawaii Ironman in Kona this October and we have the chance to see them battle it out again.
What I learned today is that it must be really great to go to different countries to race and meet the people in those countries. I would certainly like to try Ironman Japan some time, although the 15-hour time limit may prove quite a difficult challenge for me.
This morning, I still went swimming at the pool, and part of my swim was at the same time as Bree was in the water in Japan. I also swam the Ironman distance (2.4 miles, 3,860 meters) non-stop. Bree did it in 52:52, and I took about 1:16:00. Well, it was just a good feeling to think of her racing with the best while I was having a "normal" workout (I covered 4,500 meters in all today). Great race, Bree, and great race, Naomi. You are both a great inspiration to me.
Other reviews: Inside Triathlon (click here) and Ironman.com (click here). For results in Japanese (日本語) click here and in English click here.
(Photos of Bree courtesy of Ironman Japan)

Trip Back to Kaohsiung

Notes on the two video clips: Top: Mostly rural scenery between the central and southern areas of Taiwan (fairly close to Chiayi). Bottom: Starting to enter Kaohsiung. Our home is only a few miles behind what you see in the middle of the picture. Still, it really isn't that bad where we live.
Well, we stayed at the old apartment near Taipei last night and now I know the difference between sleeping with an old-style air-conditioner (the big box variety) and the new modern ones that come in two parts, with the motor on the other side of the bedroom wall. Last night was a bit like sleeping on a plane on an overnight trip, whereas in our new home we cannot hear it at all.

This afternoon we were scheduled to have a meeting with some people in relation to our old apartment and so I just stayed indoors. I had to miss swimming, but that may be a good thing once in a while. After all, I have been getting a little tired recently, and missing a day like today makes my shoulder feel a lot better.
I will still go swimming Sunday morning, and since I will be swimming at the same time as Bree, maybe I should start by trying to swim 2.4 miles non-stop. I hope, however, to get home fairly quickly to try to find out how she is doing, and will follow the race at least on and off. I just hope that whatever happens she is safe out there and does her best.

I attach some more pictures from the train. It appears Taiwan is very flat. Well it is in these parts shown in the pictures. However, we did go through a lot of tunnels especially in the early part of the ride, and the visibility was not that good today, and so the mountains that run down the middle of the island that can sometimes be seen were barely visible if at all. It should also be noted that the northern part of Taiwan has a lot of buildings and built-up areas.
From the train I am facing mauka (i.e., the mountains for those haole guys). )I hope the photos help calm the nerves as we await reports on what is going on at Ironman Japan.
Pictures (from top to bottom): (1) Rice fields north-central Taiwan, (2) Part of Taichung metropolis in Central Taiwan, (3) Crops grown in central-southern Taiwan, many under green netting, (4) Fish farming, southern Taiwan, (5) Baseball stadium, southern Taiwan, (6) Factory near Tainan in southern Taiwan.

Trip to Taipei

My wife and I took the bullet train back to Taipei today. I actually did a race today - that of catching the bullet train. We arrived at the station just over five minutes before the train we wanted to get was about to depart. At the ticket counter there were some 20 people lined up. I knew we couldn't make it. So I asked my wife to take my place in the line and I ran to the special counter for pregnant women and other people with special needs. Since there was no one waiting there and being a foreigner, they served me right away. I then shouted "Run!" to Hsiu-chin and we ran as hard as we (or rather she) could, including a long downward staircase for her in shoes with heels. We jumped on the train and within 30 seconds it departed. It certainly got the adrenalin flowing. I guess we could have taken the next one and still got what we had to do in Taipei this afternoon done, but I don't like to miss a train if I think I can still catch it.

Today may be the last time we visit our old apartment in Taipei. I had the opportunity to take a picture of the neighbor's playful dog. There are a few things we will miss, but I will still be able to walk the hills occasionally without having a place here and it won't be like we will never visit this area again. However, I like our new place in Kaohsiung, so I don't have too many regrets.

This morning I had a normal swim, meaning about 4,000 meters non-stop to start off, and then 4 x 50m (slow then fast x 2), and then a race of 100m (1m 29s - it felt good). I lost by about 1 second and basically it was the turns where I lost ground but gained it on the straights. I finished with a 50m cool down. My shoulder feels a little sore, not from swimming so much, but lugging some baggage with me on this trip. That's how it is easy to get an injury, not by swimming itself but by doing something else when some rest would be better.

I attach a movie, too, from the bullet train taken at speeds somewhere around 290 kph. This is somewhere in the Miaoli/Hsinchu area, and I can actually see the sea from here in the distance. The mountains are behind me towards the middle of the island.