Yoga-centric

Sunday 1 April 2012

This is an ad for a yoga studio nearby. When did this sentiment become so acceptable that it's used in advertising? I mean, really, if you are lucky enough to live in Vancouver, Canada (one of the best cities in the world, in a very rich, friendly country) and can afford yoga classes, perhaps it would be better to use all these incredible advantages you have and devote yourself to something larger than just yourself.

Almost the queen

Sunday 1 January 2012

Every year on the first of January the Lieutenant Governor's mansion is open to the public. The honorable Dr. Gordon L. Barnhart is the provincial representative of the Queen, and quite a snazzy dresser. We took a tour of the house and museum and also drank a glass of the Queen's sherry. Pretty good New Year's day, huh?

Luo PinXin, our handsome mayor

Wednesday 16 November 2011

All the politicians and real estate agents here have Chinese names, no matter their ethnicity. In a city like Vancouver, it just makes sense. I wonder how they choose them?

Ataturk

Saturday 17 April 2010

A statue of Ataturk in Antalya. Ataturk means "Father Turk," and is the affectionate name given to Mustafa Kemal, the founder of modern Turkey. The country is full of Ataturk statues, paintings, photos, schools, and highways. His face is drawn onto half the flags. Pictures of him hang in just about every business.

He is so well-loved, in fact, that it is actually illegal to say anything negative about him. This makes me a little nervous, personally (I guess it's very American of me, but I like my freedom of speech!) but the people here truly admire his determination and love of his country.

Chen Chu

Monday 4 January 2010

This is Chen Chu, the mayor of Kaoshiung. She's a pretty cool lady – she has spent time in jail for her involvement in Taiwan's independence movement. But I absolutely love that she has a little cartoon of herself for all the public signs and announcements. She is different in each one, but this superhero ChenChu is one of my favorites.

Taiwan is My Country

Tuesday 28 July 2009

Here is another side of the games - the political side. You see, even though Taiwan is hosting the games, and Kaohsiung city pretty much paid for the whole thing out of their pocket, local athletes are not allowed to compete under their country's name or flag. They are called "Chinese Taipei," which is a huge slap in the face as far as names go, both for the Chinese part, and because this isn't Taipei, it's Kaohsiung, and people down here are proud to be southerners.

There has been some protesting, especially by this group here, but not nearly as much as I would have thought. I think most Taiwanese are just happy to be hosting the games, to maybe be getting some international attention, to have more foreigners to shout "hello!" to for a couple of weeks, and have decided to let the politics lie. But I know if this were my country, I would be awfully mad about the whole thing.

At the closing ceremony, the mayor (an incredible woman who has done time in jail for her pro-independence activities) slipped a bunch of references to Taiwan's democracy and freedom into her speech, which was fantastic.

Shoe-throwing

Sunday 17 May 2009

We are up in Taipei for the weekend, so we decided to walk around a bit today, see a bit more of the city. And today happens to be the start of a whole bunch of protests against the current government and in support of the previous president. (We were hoping to see a big student protest, but couldn't find the starting place.) We saw this little stand here - throw shoes at politicians' faces! Definitely a very Taiwanese diversion!

License plate

Friday 6 March 2009

Two things of note in this picture. First off, you may notice the 100 in the upper left corner - that's the year the scooter is registered until. Yes, the year 100. You see, to make things confusing, Taiwan decided to start counting from 1911 (the year in which the nation, the Republic of China, was founded). So, 1911 is year 1. This year is year 98. I was born in year 70. (Funny story - when I bought my very first cell phone here, I wrote in my birth date at just 81, instead of 1981. After a few days it still wasn't connected, so I called them up. They were waiting for a parent or guardian's signature, because they thought I was just 11 years old.) "Taiwan years" are used by almost everyone for almost everything here.

And secondly, the Chinese at the top of the plate actually says "Province of Taiwan," the same word for province that is used by China. Now, why Taiwan would imply they were a province of China, I don't know. I've asked a bunch of Taiwanese people, and no one seems to know. Very strange.

Election poster

Saturday 21 February 2009

This is an election poster. You can see one characteristic typical of such posters here - you can see both hands of the guy running. But why someone would choose such a terrible picture of themselves, I don't know. I drive past this all the time, and just want to flick the hair out of his face every time.

Air Raid

Friday 17 October 2008

Downtown Kaohsiung at 1:30 in the afternoon, and there is NO ONE on the street. Not one scooter, car, bicycle, or electric wheelchair. Why not?

Air raid drill. That's right, every six months or so they turn on the air raid sirens and everyone has to get off the road and take shelter in a building while the cops and soldiers do some kind of drill, in preparation for an attack from China. (A very unlikely event, mind you.)

It's really freaky to hear the sirens go off, like something out of a WWII movie.

New Map of World

Wednesday 17 September 2008

The world as seen from a Taiwanese perspective - with Taiwan in the middle, of course! Sort of strange seeing things flipped around, I have to admit. But at least this map is pretty modern - the map at my old kindergarten had all of China marked as a part of the Republic of China (Taiwan).

Riot

Thursday 1 May 2008

Today is Labor Day in Colombia, a national holiday. The students decided to take advantage of this, and have a great big rock-throwing protest! Ryan and I saw the whole thing (and very nearly got caught up in it), from gathering, to shouting, to throwing rocks and destroying public property, to tanks coming in and hosing everyone down and tear-gassing them. (Don't worry, we were well out of the way by then.) We never quite figured out the goal of the protesters, but it was clear they were unhappy with Uribe, the president.

This photo is actually courtesy of Ryan.

Three years later

Monday 31 December 2007

One thing I like about living in a place for a while, is getting to see certain dates come more than once. This is a poster advertising the big march yesterday for the people who died in a nightclub fire three years ago. We saw the same big march pound through our neighborhood last year. The poster this year features pictures of all the kids who died, and was up everywhere.

K City

Wednesday 13 June 2007

The president of Argentina, Nestor Kirchner, is sometimes nicknamed "penguin," due to his rather prominent nose. Someone decided to take this one step further and made him into "The Penguin." The speech bubble says "Eliminating Telerman means that Filmus will win." (Those are two of the candidates for chief of government.

My personal favorite, however, is the fact that this little flier was put out by the Agrupación de Admiradores De Batman, The Batman Admirers group. He he!

Election aftermath

Wednesday 6 June 2007

Well, the election is over, time for the posters to come down. Bit by bit.

Elections

Sunday 3 June 2007

Today was city elections here in Buenos Aires! We've had weeks of posters and campaigning and half the newspaper taken up with election news (when describing a candidate, they were always sure to mention which soccer team he supports) and were quite glad to see the day actually arrive. Here are people looking up their voting info at a polling location.

There has also been all kinds of union activity and strikes and trouble in the city because all the workers with grievances (of which there are an awful lot in Buenos Aires) have been trying to get the politicians to use their cause as a campaign tool. And of course, the candidates have been biting, promising to solve all these salary and benefit issues. Hm.

The thing is - the results are coming in now, and it looks like the main guy isn't going to have quite 50%, so we could be in for three more weeks of campaigning before the run-off. Ugh!

An interesting note about election day here - you can't buy any booze. The grocery stores stopping selling it at 8 pm yesterday, had the wine aisles covered with plastic, and no restaurant was serving. Last night the bars closed their doors at midnight. (Strangely, if you were inside by then they would continue to serve you, you just couldn't get in after 12.)

Protest aftermath

Friday 18 May 2007

There was a giant protest today which was against either abortion or hunger, or maybe somehow both, I'm not sure. I saw it going screaming down Rivadavia, and later today walked through the Plaza de Mayo, where it evidently culminated. The whole plaza was filthy. There were these pamphlets thrown around, actually coating the ground in some places. (This is actually normal after any march. You can't have a protest without handouts, after all. It must make so much trash every year, considering that there is at least one big protest a week, and countless small ones.) But there was trash everywhere, too. Bottles, wrappers, papers, stuff floating in the fountains, used firework casings, just litter everywhere. It was disgusting.

I hate to sound so negative, but seeing all these protests, all this trash, having lived here for nearly a year now, I have come, unwillingly, to this conclusion. Porteños are a very angry people (perhaps rightfully so, but angry nonetheless) and have no respect for their city.

Senado

Thursday 10 May 2007

We all took a tour of the Capital building of Argentina today, where we visited the private reading room of the Argentine Library of Congress. Card Catalogues!

A Nasty Comparison

Friday 16 February 2007

These posters have gone up all over downtown in the last day or two, yelling out "Ayer Isabelita, Hoy Cristina." A few words about these two ladies of Argentine politics.

Isabelita is Isabel Perón, the third wife of the famous Juan Perón. (Evita was his second.) She was a beautiful dancer thirty five years younger than him, and met him in exhile in Panama. They married and she quickly became very influencial, and when Perón returned to Argentina and ran for president in 1973, he choose Isabel as his vice president. He died less than one year later, and she served as Argentina's first (and, thus far, only) female president from 1974 to 76.

The problem is, she was extremely unpopular. Her time in office was marked by high inflation, weak leadership, lots of disappearances, and over 1,500 deaths in an attempt to "annihilate subversive elements" in the country. She was actually arrested in Spain a few weeks ago for her connections to (i.e. direct orders for) these disappearances.

Cristina is Cristina Kirchner, current senator and rather powerful wife of the president, Nestor Kirchner. Rumors have been flying that she will run in the next presidential election. Clearly someone is not happy about this.

Kidnapped

Friday 9 February 2007

At the corner of Corrientes and Jeronimo Salguero you can see this plaque embedded in the sidewalk. It marks the place where Graciela Mellibovsky was disappeared in 1976. There are countless posters and signs and photo shows and marches here demanding that the government and the people remember the victims of the dictatorship, but I have never seen a plaque like this before, marking the exact spot something happened.