Den Hoopingarner

What does a crowded train sound like?

February 14, 2016 by Den Hoopingarner Leave a Comment

One way to discover the strength of a society is to see how its people act when things go wrong.

The day before the new year holiday, we traveled down to the city of Tainan. Because of the big earthquake, the high-speed train was not running. Everyone who had tickets on the high-speed train (us) had the option of standing on the regular train. It was crowded and hot, and standing on the train was tiring. Nevertheless, all of the passengersÂ behaved like civilized people. Passengers with seats gave them to women carrying babies.

We couldn’t believe how quiet everyone was. I shot a short video clip of inside the train car to show how civilized people behave under inconvenient circumstances. Turn up your speakers, because it’s hard to hear anything at all.

Now imagine what it would sound like in a similar train if this were shot on a train in a different country.

Looks like Uncle Chang’s shoes are too tight or something.

February 12, 2016 by Den Hoopingarner Leave a Comment

I don’t think that that picture is a strong selling point.

No thanks.

February 9, 2016 by Den Hoopingarner 1 Comment

Honey roast apple banana pizza?

I checked off another item on my bucket list

January 30, 2016 by Den Hoopingarner 1 Comment

When I was in high school, I saw the concert movie: “The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball,” which had several skits by Monty Python. One of the skits made me laugh so hard I almost lost control of my bladder.

Ever since then, I’ve wanted to perform the skit.

When my sons were old enough, I proposed performing it with them, but they refused. Can’t blame them, who wants to make themselves look silly on stage? But, I was still left with this unfulfilled goal.

Finally, I saw my big chance. Every year the Consulate throws a party to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Consulate staff are invited to be part of a talent/variety show. Last year I made a fool of myself in a green wig. This year, I enlisted two colleagues who are good sports and willing to indulge the weird fantasies of a strange little man.

I waited more than 30 years to do this. It was great. Thanks to S and D for making my dream come true!

A shared moment with a taxi driver

January 28, 2016 by Den Hoopingarner 1 Comment

Yesterday on the way home from work, the taxi driver put on some music. The song was an old Mandarin pop song from Taiwan that was popular in 1990. It was one of my favorite songs at the time, and I remembered it well. I started humming along, then noticed that the driver was humming along as well. Then he noticed that I was humming along. Then we noticed that we noticed each other humming along. Just then the chorus of the song came on. We made eye contact, and burst into song together.

He was surprised that I knew the song. I told him that I was living in Taiwan when it came out. We talked about Mandarin pop music and our favorite singers. Our respective musical tastes overlapped a lot. He said that he preferred songs from the 80s and 90s, because the lyrics captured his emotions. I told him that totally agreed.

It was a person-to-person diplomatic moment. Even though we come from very different backgrounds, we share a common taste in pop music. We talked about our feelings as much as men who don’t know each other are comfortable doing. We made a connection. I don’t have a word to describe the situation that isn’t a cliche like “cool” or “neat,” but it was those things.

This is the song that was playing:

Life is survival and happy.

January 25, 2016 by Den Hoopingarner Leave a Comment

Tourism failure

January 24, 2016 by Den Hoopingarner Leave a Comment

We are on vacation in a new city. Being adventurous tourists, we want to try the local cuisine. Wandering around this morning, looking for breakfast, we saw a restaurant that seemed to be doing bustling business. There were a lot of people inside, workers seemed to be fussing over their open pots, steam was everywhere, it was your stereotypical Chinese breakfast place.

We were a bit puzzled over the choices of dishes. Most things didn’t seem to be typical breakfast offerings. It was strange even for China. But we are on vacation, we thought. Let’s not let our prejudices get in the way of meal adventure. So we ordered several dishes and began our breakfast experience.

We were unimpressed. The food didn’t taste very good, and it was expensive. We paid over US$10 for the two of us, which by China standards is a scandalous sum to pay for breakfast. Worse, we weren’t full.

We left our food half-eaten (and less than half-enjoyed), and slouched out of the restaurant, feeling like tourist failures. We can’t live like locals! we mourned. We are hopelessly in a rut! We are cultural snobs and look down on everyone who isn’t like us! We are terrible people!

That’s when we saw Pizza Hut.

Like many American fast-food companies, Pizza Hut has done a good job of localizing their menus. A customer in America would hardly recognize the menu. Significantly, Pizza Hut in China has a breakfast menu.

Slightly ashamed, we slunk inside, shuffled to a booth, and reluctantly opened the menu.

Oh, my! Â They have oatmeal! And French toast! Yummy yum yum!

As a concession to being in China, we got soybean milk è±†æ¼¿ instead of orange juice. And we feel like tourist failures, but at least we have happy tummies.