This was never meant to be a travel blog. Even the pretentio-title of the blog doesn't refer to travel in the literal sense. But alas, I've been doing a lot of traveling lately, so posts have fallen into a kind of routine. I have a childish aversion to routine. I'm sick of listening to myself tell all these "and then and then" stories, so I've drudged up a stray thought, circa New Years 2009.
A few friends and I went down south and stayed with my friend's relatives in Changhua. Her cousins were in their early 20s and we had some interesting conversations. Us Western folks are have completely spoiled ideas of "the country". In Taiwan, "the country" doesn't consist of beautiful pastoral fields with rolling green hills abound, it's more like lonely looking mansions and industrial buildings and abandoned factories sitting atop dying grass scattered across Nowhere. It's, in a word, ugly.
And all this ugliness, well, it does a Body no good... Here's basically what Cousin Larry had to say:
Country Cat
he said that young people in the country had no power. That there were too many old folks dusting their coffins, shuffling around him in slow motion, made him dizzy. he said the air tasted dead. Everyone was dying or waiting to die, and the stillness seeped into him, slowed him down. He had to drive everywhere and driving made him tired, everything made him tired. Young people in cities don't have this problem, he said. There were lots of them, enough to fight the tired sickness. Enough to push past the haze of boredom and dead air. Enough to do, make, dream, take....
Power in numbers.
City Dog
he said he didn't want to live abroad because it was too calm, too relaxed, and that was dangerous for a person like him, someone who lacked ambition and was prone to laziness. He needed to live somewhere fast, driven, pressurized, a place that would make him do better, be better, where ambition was in the air, he hoped to inhale it, use osmosis to attain it, that pop and bang of dreams that would signal the start of his life...
Living abroad is too easy, he says. Save that for when I'm 60. For now, I wanna live. Live hard.
A few friends and I went down south and stayed with my friend's relatives in Changhua. Her cousins were in their early 20s and we had some interesting conversations. Us Western folks are have completely spoiled ideas of "the country". In Taiwan, "the country" doesn't consist of beautiful pastoral fields with rolling green hills abound, it's more like lonely looking mansions and industrial buildings and abandoned factories sitting atop dying grass scattered across Nowhere. It's, in a word, ugly.
And all this ugliness, well, it does a Body no good... Here's basically what Cousin Larry had to say:
Country Cat
he said that young people in the country had no power. That there were too many old folks dusting their coffins, shuffling around him in slow motion, made him dizzy. he said the air tasted dead. Everyone was dying or waiting to die, and the stillness seeped into him, slowed him down. He had to drive everywhere and driving made him tired, everything made him tired. Young people in cities don't have this problem, he said. There were lots of them, enough to fight the tired sickness. Enough to push past the haze of boredom and dead air. Enough to do, make, dream, take....
Power in numbers.
City Dog
he said he didn't want to live abroad because it was too calm, too relaxed, and that was dangerous for a person like him, someone who lacked ambition and was prone to laziness. He needed to live somewhere fast, driven, pressurized, a place that would make him do better, be better, where ambition was in the air, he hoped to inhale it, use osmosis to attain it, that pop and bang of dreams that would signal the start of his life...
Living abroad is too easy, he says. Save that for when I'm 60. For now, I wanna live. Live hard.
