To a God Unknown

Michael gets ready to do Jimi (pictured above)


I went down to see my friends playing in a "To a God Unknown" gig last week.
http://www.myspace.com/godunknown
The band played at the Wall, which is a venue in Gong Guan 公館 (about a fifteen minute walk from my place in Mucha 木柵). The band has definitely evolved since I saw them play last. They used to stick to three guitars and the drums. On Wednesday, they were one guitar (bass), drums, a singer-sampler (an idea the band adamantly rejected in the past) and a guy on a Mac. Rafe, the boyish and jocular leader of To a God Unknown, was absent as he was stranded on Lanyu Island 蘭嶼 (also called by some Orchid Island). Actually, he was stranded there for ten days on account of all flights in and out of the island being suspended because of the string of typhoons passing through the region. His parents, here for a vacation from the U.K., were stranded alongside Rafe, his wife and son. They made their escape on Thursday, which is a good thing because a category five typhoon is laying waste to Taiwan as I write. I just saw on the local news at lunch time that most of the transportation around the island has been shut down. That surely must go for Lanyu.



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BTW, Michael Turton has pointed out a missionary blog:
http://amanda47.blogs.com/following_an_unknown_path/2007/08/please-pray.html
This is a fascinating example of how some missionaries, in all their excitement, can misread a local culture. In Taiwan, people do not normally get involved in other people's families or business this way.

Happy Father's Day

In Taiwan, Father's Day is every year on August 8th. In Chinese, both "the number eight" and "father" are pronounced "ba". I'm not sure how long the holiday has been around here. Taiwan has imported several Western holidays, and I'm guessing this is one of them.

I wonder if I'm getting anything material for Father's Day.

Chiayi's High Speed Rail Station

Besides the Taipei and Panchiao (板橋) stops, I think all of Taiwan's high speed rail (HSR) stations must be situated in the countryside. In Chiayi (嘉義), the station is about a 25-minute drive from the city. A lot of people have complained how "inconvenient" this is. I don't know how they would've ever put in these big stations, with the massive parking lots (by Taiwan's terms) and great views, in the cities.

I Took the HSR to Chiayi

The high speed rail station in Chiayi, Taiwan. Tickets from Taipei to Chiayi (which is toward the south of Taiwan, cost NT$1080 (about US$35). The trip takes a bit over an hour.



The the high speed rail rolls into the station at Chiayi, Taiwan. High speed is just under 300 km/hr. I have heard that it was originally quite a bit faster. It was then realized that faster speeds could actually blow the windows out at the fabulously beautiful stations. (Perhaps it's an urban myth - the trains are decelerating or accelerating when they're anywhere close to a station.)