Those who know me well are aware of my ever-growing dislike for that intellectual guru of anti-Americanism Noam Chomsky. This comes after a few years of serious interest and agreement with his ideas during the "radical" days of my early 20's. Though I never found his writing very appealing - presicent in some ways I guess I was - the Canada Film Board financed hagiography of him (shown in an edited version on CBC television) Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media had a pretty profound effect on me.
My disillusionment with him began sometime around the time I saw a simulcast of an award ceremony he was given by the University of Calgary, and subsequent speech, while atttending the University of Alberta in 1997/98. A group of self-described, wanna-be "radicals"around this time had taken to making, wearing and selling t-shirts that read simply "Read Chomsky" on the front with a quote from him on the back. Though I still thought I agreed with Chomsky the sanctimoniousness of this bothered me with its "St. Chomsky"-ish overtones. The speech itself, excited as I was to almost see him in person, burst my bubble even more; anti-climactic as Dorothy's first glimpse of the Wizard of Oz as he turned out to be not the dramatic speeker the film had made him out to be, but instead a rather befuddled academic who in a rather croaky voice rambled on in seeming smug self-assurance of his own perspicaciousness.
On coming out of the theatre, I was even approached by a reporter for the U of A's student newspaper (that I later wrote a great deal for) asking my opinion of the speech. The spell had not been totally broken, but while saying that I liked it I also made some comments that I think rather irked the Chomskyites on campus to the effect that it had rambled on and not been entirely coherent.
It wasn't until the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, however, that I finally freed myself from the Cult of Chomsky as he, parroting an opinion that had already by this time disgusted me, maintained that it was all the fault of America and that those killed might somehow deserve their fate.
Since then my dislike of the man's opinions has grown evermore. Recently I came across an excellent article online that discusses his disturbingly disingenuous attitudes towards the Khmer Rouge and their rule of Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. It's rather long, but well worth reading as the best analysis of not only how wrong Chomsky was, but how he dishonestly he has dealt with his errors ever since he was proved to be so wrong. Chomsky is, of course, one of the foremost spokespersons again the mainstream media's "propaganda model," but what Bruce Sharp so convincingly shows in this article is how skilfully Chomsky himself propagandizes.
Propaganda is, by its nature, advocacy. The American Heritage dictionary defines propaganda as "The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause." Chomsky often describes the Western media as propaganda. Yet Chomsky himself is no more objective than the media he criticizes; he merely gives us different propaganda.
Chomsky's supporters frequently point out that he is trying to present the side of the story that is less often seen. But there is no guarantee that these "opposing" viewpoints have any factual merit; Porter and Hildebrand's book [Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution] is a fine example. The value of a theory lies in how it relates to the truth, not in how it relates to other theories. By habitually parroting only the contrarian view, Chomsky creates a skewed, inaccurate version of events. This is a fundamentally flawed approach: It is an approach that is concerned with persuasiveness, and not with the truth. It's the tactic of a lawyer, not a scientist. Chomsky seems to be saying: if the media is wrong, I'll present a view which is diametrically opposed. Imagine a mathematician adopting Chomsky's method: Rather than insuring the accuracy of the calculations, problems would be "solved" by averaging different wrong answers.
Describing the difference between good science and bad, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman stressed the importance of including all available evidence:
"Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can -- if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong -- to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it... In summary, the idea is to give ALL of the information to help others judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another."(Feynman, Richard: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, p. 341).
By contrast, consider the tactics employed by a devoted partisan. The partisan has already decided where her or his sympathies lie; the goal is to convince others to adopt the same position. Toward that end, a partisan will not concede anything, and will not encourage the examination of conflicting points of view. Seen in this light, the first step is to discredit conflicting accounts of any event. Arguments advanced for this purpose need not be consistent. If one reader decides that Barron and Paul are unreliable because they relied on government sources, fine; if another reader decides that Chomsky and Herman are reliable because they relied on government sources, that's fine, too. If one reader believes that the Khmer Rouge averted widespread starvation thanks to their ingenious irrigation projects, that's fine; if another reader believes that there was widespread starvation, but that it was due to the US bombing two years earlier, that's also fine.
Why are so many people persuaded by Chomsky's arguments? In large measure, this is because Chomsky is undeniably brilliant. As propagandists go, he is skillful and persuasive... or at least, persuasive to people whose only knowledge of the topic at hand comes from Chomsky himself.
Chomsky understands a critical axiom of sophistry: it's far better to mislead than to lie. Obfuscation is the propagandist's best friend. A skilled propagandist will not say, "Hildebrand and Porter's book shows that conditions under the Khmer Rouge were fairly good." Better to say that the book presents a "very favorable picture," to praise it as "carefully documented," and let the readers draw their own conclusions. Don't say, "Ponchaud's book presents a false picture of atrocities under the Khmer Rouge." Instead, simply say that this "grisly account" is "careless," and that "its veracity is therefore difficult to assess." And never forget the value of a good disclaimer: "We do not pretend to know where the truth lies..."
The whole article can be found at: http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/chomsky.htm
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Very interesting...
I had the most remarkable conversation the other day with a girl from southern China. I'd never met her, but had instead been connected to her through a site called myspace.com (very much like friendster.com or hi5.com: put up a "profile," invite friends, personalize it some ways, blah blah blah...). I don't frequent it very often, but having a few friends who use it a fair bit I check it out once in a while. A couple months back I changed my location to "Taiwan" and since then have gotten a few wanna-be friends "invitations" from people, mostly girls, in this part of the world. This girl was one of them. We exchanged emails anyways and I added her onto my MSN Messenger list but we'd never chatted until a few nights ago.
It began with the usual chit-chat, but upon being reminded that I was in Taiwan she said I should come and visit China. I responded by saying I'd like to someday, but that not being a fan of her government I'm reluctant to go as I don't want to in any way support it. Her response, "I don't understand."
So I start discussing the specifics of what I don't like about the Chinese government: its brutal annexation and ongoing ethnic cleansing of Tibet, its beligerence towards Taiwan and claim that it is but a "renegade" province of China that must at some point be reunited with the mainland instead of the rightfully independent country that it should be recognized as, its lack of democracy, use of slave labor, persecution of the Falum Gong members, and continued denial of any lives being lost when the "Peoples Liberation Army" ended the pro-democracy protests in Tianenmmen Square on June 4, 1989 among other things.
To say that she didn't appreciate my lack of appreciation would indeed be an understatement. "Oh, so you're probably one of those who think Taiwan should be independent," was more or less the gist of her response to which I replied that that is exactly what I think; saying furthermore that I didn't think China had any legal right to Taiwan and that China should respect the right of self-determination of the people of Taiwan as expressed in the UN Charter to which it is a signatory.
"You just don't understand; you're not Chinese" was then her only response to my requests for reasons as to why Taiwan "belonged" to China, but I insisted sending her links to the Wikipedia page detailing the Tianenmmen Square massacre and other Chinese atrocities which only seemed to make her angrier so then the insults started. "Gay" was the least of it, culminating in the "C" word for female genitalia - she was livid; insisting that she could say whatever she wanted, contrary to my condemnation of China's lack of freedom or press, assembly and religion, and that I didn't know anything about China. When I insisted otherwise, mentioning more details of the Chinese government's horrors, she continued the insults before finally quitting the conversation.
What to think of a young woman who has obviously been so brainwashed that any opposing viewpoints are attacked as heresy? She was on her way to Bali for a vacation so she was obviously not very poor, but clearly had never been exposed to any "truths" other than those of the Chinese government she found nothing wrong with. And to think that there are undoubtedly hundreds of millions of people just like her in China. A scary thought indeed...
It began with the usual chit-chat, but upon being reminded that I was in Taiwan she said I should come and visit China. I responded by saying I'd like to someday, but that not being a fan of her government I'm reluctant to go as I don't want to in any way support it. Her response, "I don't understand."
So I start discussing the specifics of what I don't like about the Chinese government: its brutal annexation and ongoing ethnic cleansing of Tibet, its beligerence towards Taiwan and claim that it is but a "renegade" province of China that must at some point be reunited with the mainland instead of the rightfully independent country that it should be recognized as, its lack of democracy, use of slave labor, persecution of the Falum Gong members, and continued denial of any lives being lost when the "Peoples Liberation Army" ended the pro-democracy protests in Tianenmmen Square on June 4, 1989 among other things.
To say that she didn't appreciate my lack of appreciation would indeed be an understatement. "Oh, so you're probably one of those who think Taiwan should be independent," was more or less the gist of her response to which I replied that that is exactly what I think; saying furthermore that I didn't think China had any legal right to Taiwan and that China should respect the right of self-determination of the people of Taiwan as expressed in the UN Charter to which it is a signatory.
"You just don't understand; you're not Chinese" was then her only response to my requests for reasons as to why Taiwan "belonged" to China, but I insisted sending her links to the Wikipedia page detailing the Tianenmmen Square massacre and other Chinese atrocities which only seemed to make her angrier so then the insults started. "Gay" was the least of it, culminating in the "C" word for female genitalia - she was livid; insisting that she could say whatever she wanted, contrary to my condemnation of China's lack of freedom or press, assembly and religion, and that I didn't know anything about China. When I insisted otherwise, mentioning more details of the Chinese government's horrors, she continued the insults before finally quitting the conversation.
What to think of a young woman who has obviously been so brainwashed that any opposing viewpoints are attacked as heresy? She was on her way to Bali for a vacation so she was obviously not very poor, but clearly had never been exposed to any "truths" other than those of the Chinese government she found nothing wrong with. And to think that there are undoubtedly hundreds of millions of people just like her in China. A scary thought indeed...
SUV love affair no more?
Apparently Sport Utility Vehicles sales aren't doing so well and I couldn't be happier about it. In today's Washington Post:
Gas prices have fallen in recent weeks, but U.S. consumers are still avoiding big sport-utility vehicles in favor of passenger cars, forcing domestic automakers to slow truck production...
Industry-wide, passenger cars gained market share from light trucks in November. Toyota's U.S. sales rose 13 percent, and Honda reported an 8 percent increase. Nissan Motor Co. trailed its larger Japanese rivals in the United States; sales fell 4 percent.
The sales spiral of the Ford Explorer demonstrates consumers' shifting tastes. It was once one of the nation's most popular vehicles, but Ford sold fewer than 12,000 last month, a 52 percent drop from November 2004.
At the height of the SUV boom in 2002, Ford routinely sold 25,000 to 40,000 Explorers a
month.
Ford is looking to offset the weakness in trucks with more sales of passenger cars, including the Ford Fusion and Lincoln Zephyr.
GM also felt the SUV crunch. In November, sales of the Chevrolet Suburban and Cadillac Escalade dropped 46 percent and 48 percent, respectively, from November 2004.
Analysts have blamed slumping SUV demand in part for the automakers' deteriorating financial condition. The automakers blame high labor costs, including health care costs and payments for pensions, and inflexible union rules.
U.S. consumers remain skittish about buying sport-utility vehicles after the fuel-price volatility during this year's hurricane season, said Robert H. Schnorbus, chief economist at J.D. Power and Associates. "Even though prices are down from their peaks, I think there is still a big concern or big issue in buyers' minds," he said.
It was really only a question of when such ridiculousness would finally come to an end. $3 a gallon gasoline is something Americans are going to have to get used to.
Gas prices have fallen in recent weeks, but U.S. consumers are still avoiding big sport-utility vehicles in favor of passenger cars, forcing domestic automakers to slow truck production...
Industry-wide, passenger cars gained market share from light trucks in November. Toyota's U.S. sales rose 13 percent, and Honda reported an 8 percent increase. Nissan Motor Co. trailed its larger Japanese rivals in the United States; sales fell 4 percent.
The sales spiral of the Ford Explorer demonstrates consumers' shifting tastes. It was once one of the nation's most popular vehicles, but Ford sold fewer than 12,000 last month, a 52 percent drop from November 2004.
At the height of the SUV boom in 2002, Ford routinely sold 25,000 to 40,000 Explorers a
month.
Ford is looking to offset the weakness in trucks with more sales of passenger cars, including the Ford Fusion and Lincoln Zephyr.
GM also felt the SUV crunch. In November, sales of the Chevrolet Suburban and Cadillac Escalade dropped 46 percent and 48 percent, respectively, from November 2004.
Analysts have blamed slumping SUV demand in part for the automakers' deteriorating financial condition. The automakers blame high labor costs, including health care costs and payments for pensions, and inflexible union rules.
U.S. consumers remain skittish about buying sport-utility vehicles after the fuel-price volatility during this year's hurricane season, said Robert H. Schnorbus, chief economist at J.D. Power and Associates. "Even though prices are down from their peaks, I think there is still a big concern or big issue in buyers' minds," he said.
It was really only a question of when such ridiculousness would finally come to an end. $3 a gallon gasoline is something Americans are going to have to get used to.
Ah Shakespeare
Back when I was working on the Fascination, the Carnival Cruise ship I was on from January through May of this year, I made a pretty incredible find in a book shop in Key West, Florida (our every Tuesday morning stop on the way from Miami to Cozumel): a hard cover edition of the complete works of Shakespear (including the sonnets) for $3.50 American! (I later also found in the same place a hard cover edition of the complete writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson for a whole $5.) Since then I've been reading a lot of the Bard. So much great writing. Here's a quote from Richard III:
"But then I sigh, and with a piece of scripture, tell them that God bids us do good for evil. And thus I clothe my naked villainy with odds and ends stol'n forth of Holy writ and seem a saint when most I play the devil."
By no means do I mean to imply anything self-descriptive by me posting this, but what a perfect description of the pure (though apparently historically inaccurate; the demonizing of Richard being a production of the later Tudor kings that succeeded the York dynasty that Richard had been the last King of England from; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_of_England) evil that Shakespeare charaacterized so brilliantly in that play. Ian McKellen's (of Lord of the Rings Gandalf fame) film version is well worth seeing if you're at all interested.
"But then I sigh, and with a piece of scripture, tell them that God bids us do good for evil. And thus I clothe my naked villainy with odds and ends stol'n forth of Holy writ and seem a saint when most I play the devil."
By no means do I mean to imply anything self-descriptive by me posting this, but what a perfect description of the pure (though apparently historically inaccurate; the demonizing of Richard being a production of the later Tudor kings that succeeded the York dynasty that Richard had been the last King of England from; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_of_England) evil that Shakespeare charaacterized so brilliantly in that play. Ian McKellen's (of Lord of the Rings Gandalf fame) film version is well worth seeing if you're at all interested.
Something to say
Yet again I find myself having written little on here of late, though that's mostly the result of being busy working on other writings; specifically an article for a foreigners magazine here in Taiwan who's deadline for submissions was yesterday. I got it in; we'll see what they think. They're looking for "New Journalism" kind of pieces, a la Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, and this was my first extended, at least somewhat serious, experiment in that kind of style. Who knows, maybe they'll even publish it.
Otherwise, I've been working at my new job for three weeks now. Washington America Elementary School is the name and I'm teaching Reading and Social Studies to Grades 1 and 2, and Conversation/Listening to Grades 4 and 5. It's pretty relaxed and being an elementary school and not one of the plethora of "bushibans" or cram-schools that are also everywhere I only work Monday to Fridays. I was offered jobs before this one, but I really wanted to have my weekends off and eventually I found work where I did. I'm only working 17 hours a week though so given that I am here to make money after all, I've been looking for more work to fill in my time and it seems like I may have found some. A school emailed me about evening work 3 times a week so I'm hopefully going to meet with them today and see if it will work. I do like my free time, but after doing very little for my first two months here I need to start getting out of the hole of debt I've dug for myself.
Otherwise, I've been working at my new job for three weeks now. Washington America Elementary School is the name and I'm teaching Reading and Social Studies to Grades 1 and 2, and Conversation/Listening to Grades 4 and 5. It's pretty relaxed and being an elementary school and not one of the plethora of "bushibans" or cram-schools that are also everywhere I only work Monday to Fridays. I was offered jobs before this one, but I really wanted to have my weekends off and eventually I found work where I did. I'm only working 17 hours a week though so given that I am here to make money after all, I've been looking for more work to fill in my time and it seems like I may have found some. A school emailed me about evening work 3 times a week so I'm hopefully going to meet with them today and see if it will work. I do like my free time, but after doing very little for my first two months here I need to start getting out of the hole of debt I've dug for myself.
Friday, November 25, 2005
Quote for today
From Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner:
"Because who...has been in love and not discovered the vain evanescence of the fleshly encounter; who has not had to realize that when the brief all is done you must retreat from both love and pleasure, gather up your own rubbish and refuse - the hats and pants and shows which you drag through the world - and retreat since the gods condone and practice these and the dreamy immeasurable coupling which floats oblivious above the trammeling and harried instant, the: was-not: is: was: is a perquisite only of balloony and weightless elephants and whales: but maybe if there were sin too maybe you would not be permitted to escape, uncouple, return."
"Because who...has been in love and not discovered the vain evanescence of the fleshly encounter; who has not had to realize that when the brief all is done you must retreat from both love and pleasure, gather up your own rubbish and refuse - the hats and pants and shows which you drag through the world - and retreat since the gods condone and practice these and the dreamy immeasurable coupling which floats oblivious above the trammeling and harried instant, the: was-not: is: was: is a perquisite only of balloony and weightless elephants and whales: but maybe if there were sin too maybe you would not be permitted to escape, uncouple, return."
Saturday, November 05, 2005
Words
While I was in Taiwan these last two months I was reading, when I was reading which wasn't that often actually, Faulkner's Absalom! Absalom!; a hell of an interesting book by a truly great writer. I'd tried to read Faulkner before (The Sound and the Fury), but it was too much for me at the time; I was too young and inexperienced a reader. He's a writer who you have to work at to read; fight with almost at least at first until you begin to grasp the poetics of his language that once suitably immersed come to possess you with its intensity of expression. I'm still not finished, but I decided that I could use a break from it and that for this short trip to Thailand I should bring something else along so that I wouldn't run out while I was here. Spadework by Timothy Findley was the book thus chosen to accompany me; one I'd been curious about having read others by him (The Wars and Not Wanted On the Voyage) and having it sit in front of me on the coffee table where I've been living these last two months. My roommate Caitlin had got it from an ex-Canadian boyfriend but had yet to read it so I thought I'd give it a try.
Interesting it was. Set entirely in Stratford, Ontario of all places. Not exactly a difficult read anyways; I finished it in all of two days. An All's Well That Ends Well kind of book taking place as it does among the theatre gliterrati of Stratford's annual Shakespeare Festival. Happy family with underlying conflicts, crisis brought on by same conflicts, eventual resolution - hardly original plot structuring. But of course, what novels these days are in anyway original. Not too many. Instead, the characters are what's important and in this book, as in the others I've read by him, Findley does a pretty good job of telling us their story and thereby convincing us of their reality. Certainly not a great book, but rather a pretty good one.
One thing that bothered me about this book in which nearly every character smoked cigarettes at least a little, if not a lot, was his consistent usage of "lighted" as in "She lighted a cigarette as...". I know it's grammatically correct, but it sounds so stilted and awkward compared to the equally sensical and much more flowing "lit"; "she lit a cigarette..." sounds so much better don't you think?
And while on the topic of word usage, when did the indefinite article "an" become usable in front of words that don't start with vowels? Having finished Spadework I went out last night to find something new to read and at one of the many used bookstores scattered around Khao Sarn Rd. found The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History by Phillip Bobbitt. A very good read so far, but he consistently writes (not a quote since I don't have the book with me, but a similar example): "It happened in terms of an historical event not previously seen..." Huh? Since when has this been deemed grammatically correct? As I've been trying to teach my students in Taiwan, one of the vagaries of the English language is the different usages of the indefinite articles: "a" in front of words that begin with a consonant, and "an" in front of any word that begins with a vowel (a,e,i,o,u). Yet a Professor of Constitutionl Studies at a major American university with a PhD from Oxford apparently thinks differently and somehow managed to get his editors and publisher to go along with him. Can anyone explain this one?
Interesting it was. Set entirely in Stratford, Ontario of all places. Not exactly a difficult read anyways; I finished it in all of two days. An All's Well That Ends Well kind of book taking place as it does among the theatre gliterrati of Stratford's annual Shakespeare Festival. Happy family with underlying conflicts, crisis brought on by same conflicts, eventual resolution - hardly original plot structuring. But of course, what novels these days are in anyway original. Not too many. Instead, the characters are what's important and in this book, as in the others I've read by him, Findley does a pretty good job of telling us their story and thereby convincing us of their reality. Certainly not a great book, but rather a pretty good one.
One thing that bothered me about this book in which nearly every character smoked cigarettes at least a little, if not a lot, was his consistent usage of "lighted" as in "She lighted a cigarette as...". I know it's grammatically correct, but it sounds so stilted and awkward compared to the equally sensical and much more flowing "lit"; "she lit a cigarette..." sounds so much better don't you think?
And while on the topic of word usage, when did the indefinite article "an" become usable in front of words that don't start with vowels? Having finished Spadework I went out last night to find something new to read and at one of the many used bookstores scattered around Khao Sarn Rd. found The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History by Phillip Bobbitt. A very good read so far, but he consistently writes (not a quote since I don't have the book with me, but a similar example): "It happened in terms of an historical event not previously seen..." Huh? Since when has this been deemed grammatically correct? As I've been trying to teach my students in Taiwan, one of the vagaries of the English language is the different usages of the indefinite articles: "a" in front of words that begin with a consonant, and "an" in front of any word that begins with a vowel (a,e,i,o,u). Yet a Professor of Constitutionl Studies at a major American university with a PhD from Oxford apparently thinks differently and somehow managed to get his editors and publisher to go along with him. Can anyone explain this one?
Get me out!
It's been a long time since I've been punched in the face, but, as if I could find any less reason to want to be in Bangkok, I had such a thing happen to be a short while ago. As I was walking down a street shared by pedestrians and motor vehicles, a taxi pulled up in front of me and just as I walked by the back door of the side I was on opened just as I happened to be walking by it nearly smashing my knee if I hadn't jumped out of the way. Not sure the exact words that came out of my mouth, but an expletive of some sort it was as I kept walking. Perhaps ten seconds later I hear a voice behind me and am pushed in the back. Turning around I find myself confronted with an enraged Thai guy screaming at me, throwing punches (most of which I block, but one of them lands on my left cheek) and kicking. I, of course, try to reason with the guy (I guess I somehow insulted him though he was the one who nearly hit my leg with the taxi door), but whether he just couldn't understand English, just wanted to fight, was flipped out on speed (leading to not very calm personalities; a very common problem here depsite the government's anti-drug crackdown of recent years) or a combination of all three all I could do was block his repeated attacks and try to talk some sense into him. Thankfully his friend came and pulled him away though he continued to scream at me for my apparent indiscretion. Thank god I have only one more night in this city...
Friday, November 04, 2005
Bangkok blues
Sartre's dictum that (translated from the French of course) hell is other people has never been an opinion I've wished to grant my aquiesance to, but after another day spent in the environs of Khao Sarn Rd. in Bangkok I'm prone to agree. I'm only in Thailand to renew my visa that was going to run out in a few more days and so this whole trip, far from being a desirable escape/vacation from Taiwan is rather an expensive annoyance I wished I could have avoided. So I find myself yet again in this traveller ghetto of ghettos. Sick of these masses of middle/upper class western humanity strutting their usually drunken selves down these streets of casual cavortment; all attempting to impress with their so hip, yet completely conventional relative to everyone else fashion sense. Yes, this is sadly the future right now...
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
My apologies...
For not having written anything of late; a couple weeks even. Lazyness undoubtedly has something to do with it, but I also have been feeling pretty lousy the last week and a half due to a cold/flu leaving me not very inspired to put words to thoughts. Has been relatively eventful though. About a month ago now I went and checked out a live music club called Grooveyard that's been open since May or so of this year and who should I find behind the soundboard when I walked in, but a guy named Patrick from Edmonton who used to play in a band called Wide Awake and Dreaming with two friends of mine Ross and Jacob. I never really knew him back home, but I recognized him though I hadn't seen him in probably 5 or 6 years. He runs the place with an Aussie guy named Roger, plays (tenor and soprano sax) around Taiwan and does booking and managing for some bands on the side. To make a long story short I soon started playing with him and Roger in their jazz group and given that the Taichung Jazz Festival's going on, we played this last Sunday to a fair sized crowd. I bought an acoustic guitar here, but for playing with a band a guy I met that I'm in the process of starting a country band with lent me his surprisingly good Aria Pro II electric, a Les Paulish thing that actually plays and sounds quite good. He also lent me his delay and volume pedal for the gig; definite treats for one who loves effects like me. The people seemed to like it anyways, even being asked to have my picture taken with a woman. The $3000 NT (about a $110 Canadian) was certainly nice as well...
Unfortunately, my visa runs out next Monday so I have to leave the country to renew it. Hong Kong's the cheapest place to go, but they also therefore happen to be the stingiest when it comes to visa renewals. So back to Bangkok I must go being the next cheapest place. Though I finally have a job, I haven't been working long enough to make very much so I can ill afford it, but it's not like I have much choice in the matter; visa overstays get you into a mess of problems I have no desire to deal with. At least I'll have a time-out from Taiwan, though since I actually quite like it after only being here two months it's rather a waste, but hopefully I'll enjoy Bangkok more than my last time spent there when I spent far too many frustrating days waiting to get my first visa to Taiwan.
Unfortunately, my visa runs out next Monday so I have to leave the country to renew it. Hong Kong's the cheapest place to go, but they also therefore happen to be the stingiest when it comes to visa renewals. So back to Bangkok I must go being the next cheapest place. Though I finally have a job, I haven't been working long enough to make very much so I can ill afford it, but it's not like I have much choice in the matter; visa overstays get you into a mess of problems I have no desire to deal with. At least I'll have a time-out from Taiwan, though since I actually quite like it after only being here two months it's rather a waste, but hopefully I'll enjoy Bangkok more than my last time spent there when I spent far too many frustrating days waiting to get my first visa to Taiwan.
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