cinnamomum camphora
First and foremost, I got my new postings. Thursday will be the last day of my work here in SCS. Next week I will be in this place around Teck Whye playing with radio sets. Sounds slack?
Yeah right. 这种好康的东西通常都不是我的。I am indeed going there to handle radio sets and be a good Signal Sergeant. But, I am part of some chiong-sua and garang and full-of-big-shots department. And I would assume I am carrying the signal set and running in the forests, like what I always did before I OOC here. Hmmm. I loved Route Marches. Cos it's one of the few things that I excel at--walking.
说到走路，actually it is fun walking around alone, especially when travelling. I can spend hours walking around towns, eat drink look see chat, and I think I'll gain much more than attending those tours. Of course lah when in museums I'm sure the existence of guides are helpful, but I wouldn't like people following me while I walk along the alleys of Geylang right.
While I was in Tapioca Island the last month, I had the chance of going almost everywhere as long as military vehicles are permitted. It was 农历七月，村庙门口有庙会，早上念经，晚上就有歌台，还有脱衣秀……
马路边的bus stop，到处都是XX征信社(private investigator)的广告，老公偷情到大陆都可以抓回来…… And they have weird slogans:
The first Hokkien word I learnt during this trip is.... 抓候 lia̍h-kâu!!!
And any temple that says 福德祠 means they 拜土地公，天后宫 means they 拜妈祖婆，庙如果屋顶两侧是翘起来的，就是政府盖的……Common perception of people speaking: If one pronounces 吃饭 as CHI HUAN then he must be native Taiwanese. If one pronounces 说话 as SHUO FA then he must be Hakka. If he ends every sentence with 的啦！then he must a tribesman...
This kind of things, guided tour where got teach you one. You must walk INTO the population to experience their life and culture and heritage yeah.
In Tâi-pak go see museum lor. Also self-guided tour. For one whole day hahaha shiok to the max.
This one is the City Arts Museum. Got the Biennial. Very interesting concepts:
 |
| 台北市立美术馆，shortform 北美馆 |
 |
| An Iraqi artist. Seriously I 佩服 how people can do art in war environments. |
 |
| This is one of my favorite exhibits (maybe because it's the easiest to understand hahaha). Shows how angmohs have sharp noses. |
 |
| How true. HAHAHAHA. Especially when NJ uniform is so..... kilang. |
Then there was this 「馬內到畢卡索——費城美術館經典展」 (From Manet to Picasso: Exhibitions from PMoA):
Too bad cannot take pictures, but nevertheless I grabbed some of the pieces I can remember off the net:
 |
| "View of Trouville" by Eugene Louis Boudin |
 |
| "Quartier Four, Auvers-sur-Oise" by Paul Cézanne |
 |
| "Horse pipe and Red Flower" by Joan Miro |
 |
| "Still Life with Bordeaux Bottles" by Juan Gris. This Juan guy do cubism one. See all the shapes cut nice nice one. |
Then later in the day I went on to walk around in city. And I chose to walk around the political centres since the Japanese times:
 |
| The Control Yuan (監察院), in charge of auditing, monitoring and impeaching officials. Used to be the Taihoku Prefecture government building. Currently the best Baroque-themed building around. |
 |
| 台灣省專賣局松山煙草工廠. Some tobacco plant right smack in the middle of town, and the Government earned tons because tobacco was a monopoly. That means, only government can produce and sell tobacco. Hohohoho. |
 |
| 景福門, aka 東門 (East Gate). Got 5 gates here lah, the most famous one of course is 西门 lor, that's why got 西门町! |
 |
| 總統府, the Presidential Palace. Used to be the Governor's House during the Japanese colonial times. Tons of MPs around me while I took this picture. |
 |
| 黃氏節孝坊 |
 |
| 急公好義坊 |
This kind of structure (牌坊) is very common in Chinese places. NTU got one, Maris Stella outside also got one, a lot lah. However this two 牌坊s are special in the sense that they were built to PRAISE people.
The top one is to praise this very noble mother-cum-wife. This particular Mdm Ng's husband was a scholar-turned-merchant but was very ill. So he passed away at a young age, leaving three kids behind with the wife. The wife followed her in-laws to Damsui in Taiwan and brought the 3 kids alone, and they all become famous scholars and philanthropists. So after she died some of the townsmen thought she was a great model for mothers and proposed to the emperor to build this 牌坊 for her.
The bottom was about this philanthropist who believed that education was very important. And back then the capital was 300km away in the South, so it was difficult for the kids to take their imperial exams there. This rich merchant then donated land and money to build the exam hall here. The Provincial Governor thought this was noble and proposed to the Emperor to build this 牌坊 for him. Hahaha.
 |
| 國立臺灣博物館, National Taiwan Museum, used to be the Taiwan Governors' Museum during the colonial times. Renaissance styled architecture. |
The theme then was about Camphor, and the aboriginal cultures:
 |
| This thing is called Bangka, 艋舺. Tribe canoe. |
 |
| 艋舺龍山寺. Inside got the God for Mugging. People bring spring onion 葱（聪）, celery 芹（勤）and stuff like that to pray for their kids to mug well..... |
Ahah, talking about clubbing, the clubs on Tapioca Island is so much better than ours. The people there are friendly you see. You can talk all kinds of crap there and people will still smile at you. Back here, you talk to a random stranger and they will stare and glare at you. No fun at all.
So I was at this place called Pasoul, along 敦化南路 (where you get 24h Bookstores, club finish if sober still can read books). Went there with locals lah, don't like my comrades following me wherever I go. Anyway the clubs they went where smoking ones, people hold cigarettes over head and club. WTF.
LIFE CAN BE SO FUN. IT'S JUST HOW YOU CHOOSE IT.
[Okay, I don't know what next week will be like. ARGH.]
