Replies

Well I'm back for another day! Freeping yesterday was so satisfying, like a glass of water in the desert, that I had to come back again. I'm constantly forgetting the unique "challenges" of living with a bunch of Chinese people, in their chosen environment. Anthropologically it's fascinating, all these Asian cultures specialize in these identified behaviors which they set in place, then those behaviors force and preclude certain choices by their victims, er, citizens.

(note to self: add that paragraph to your first book on Asian social structures!)

;-)

But specifically I'm talking about how they have pushed all the houses close together, with seven or eight floors, all with shops on the ground floor (and the houses are only like twenty feet wide, but 150 deep!) so you can just jam pack an incredible number of people on what looks like a small,normal street!

But the real kicker is the "there are no individuals" attitudes here, so everyone just stares at you, or anyone they don't know. One after the other, dozens and dozens of people, and if you just walk two blocks you've walked past many 20-foot-wide store fronts, on both sides of the street, each one with three or four people who will stand there, or turn around, and just stare at you like a corpse.

So try actually walking across the whole neighborhood! You will have walked in front of hundreds of nosy, emotionless prying eyes. It's unnerving, and I'm well used to it! And they aren't just silent either, noisy cars, smelly pollution, and many people, especially younger ones, say "Helloooooooo", in this heavy accent. Of course they don't stop and talk, so it quickly becomes borderline mockery. And the Taiwanese wonder why so many of us just up and leave suddenly. Hmmm, I wonder.

I, of course, usually never go out into "the maelstrom", but waiting for my computer kind of forces me to, that is, if I want to get to an internet cafe. Yesterday kind of got under my skin, I guess because I enjoyed freeping so much, then had to go out into that suffocating atmosphere for a long walk home. So today I'm practicing some Buddhist meditative technique called "mindfulness", where you stop regularly and check your surroundings and moods. It's supposed to become habitual after a time, and so far it works! It has a calming effect, checking your immediate vicinity out often, and keeps you cool and on a point before you get fed up and then pissed off, which might then take a long time to go away (I HATE getting pissed off!) ;-)

I guess you can file it under "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"!

How's your post-Thanksgiving? Or I guess it's Saturday afternoon there now, here it's Sunday morning. Any good games on? Maybe I'll try a very light holiday poem this morning, just maybe I hear a muse fumbling around with her rouge compact nearby!

OMG LOL, you are so funny! I just woke up from a long nap, in comes your ping, I start reading and LOL.

Om my gosh, I don't know how you deal with it. All those eyes staring as you walk down the street. Would absolutely drive me nuts.
;)

Those buildings you described sound sort of like 'shot gun houses' they have in the south. Long and straight, or those old house on Main Street I have seen in Westerns.

Yupper, FReeping is addictive and the with drawls are a dozy.

This morning I had some friends stop around for a few moments, other wise it has been very quiet.
Lovely weather today, temps reached into the higher 50s. It gets dark so early now making the nights very long and the days so short.

Well, I hope your muse has her makeup in place and is ready to guide you.