A magnificent cloud is rolling in over Taipei. I am sitting in the living room of our flat, watching from the tall windows, one whole wall of the flat. Taipei has disappeared and now the cloud is coming towards the hill on which this building is set, engulfing the trees. The world shrinks to sight […]
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The end of this fucking world
This morning, suddenly, it all began to feel real, that today is the moment that the world has changed, that this is the day that defines the rest of the lives of my generation. I had viewed the plummetting of my meagre investments a few days ago with equanimity, as they feel imaginary anyway, and […]
Sakura hunt
We woke early in the morning, before sunrise, to climb up behind our bed and breakfast to what we were told was a beautiful place to watch the dawn. We made it up just as the sun was coming out. It was not the sea of clouds, but it was a sunrise over hills and […]
Mountain train
Early in the morning – well, around 9 – we took the train up to Alishan. This was a small Japanese era train which passed behind small houses and flowering trees, passed little wooden stations from that era, and left all signs of people behind and climbed up the steep central hills towards Taiwan’s most […]
Fish soup
We took our bags to Chinese lessons today – it was the other teacher who is much, much better than the one on Monday. She took our Line accounts (which I created only for the purpose of Taiwan travel as I don’t use it otherwise), and has been sending up pictures and videos all day. […]
Doubting Dalrymple
A very interesting review of William Dalrymple’s latest, on the rise of the East India Company, in the LA Review of Books. Articulates my vague unease about his school of post-imperial wokeness that is so popular amongst the chattering Pakistani readership.
Hmm
I was not pleased with my Chinese lesson today, and neither was the GF. It is guided entirely by the textbook, which is not very good, and the teacher didn’t do a great job of actually teaching. I do understand that reciting and memorising is an important way of learning languages, but it’s not the […]
Leashed rabbit
This morning we went to Tamsui, a town by the sea and a river and visible from our windows. The day I arrived was the final day of the Chinese New Year and I watched fireworks all along it, far below our condo building on a hillside above the town. The Boddhisattva is in Vietnam […]
Nostalgia
We had our second Chinese lesson this morning – I don’t think it’s going nearly as smoothly as the Spanish lessons and I’m feeling rather nostalgic about them now. Here we are three people in a small windowless classroom, poring over a textbook and shouting out seemingly meaningless syllables in unison. There, I sat in […]
Saul returns
We watched the first episode of the new season of Better Call Saul last night. Very promising, particularly as I found the last season a bit flat. I was pleased in particular that I could follow much of the Spanish – I had thought I’d forgotten all of it. Otherwise it was a quiet sort […]