Alton Thompson has a post on Typhoon Morakot disaster relief information. I highly recommend anyone looking for information on how to help to check out this post.

Typhoon Morakot has really hammered Taiwan and at least one entire village appears to have been completely submerged in mud. Apparently the response has been slow so far.

I experienced low-grade Typhoon Kalmaegi last summer in Taiwan and it was an awesome sight – here’s a photo (best viewed large to get an idea of how much water is coming down). Whole fields and neighborhoods were flooded and people were using boats to get around, rivers were swollen beyond their banks, and there were cars stuck in water everywhere. I rode the high speed rail during the tail end of the storm and got a good look of everything from Kaohsiung to Taoyuan, and it looked like the flooding was nearly complete for the entire distance of the trip! For this past typhoon, it was the most precipitation they had in 50 years, and parts of Taiwan received an entire year’s worth of rainfall in two days. It rains a lot in Taiwan already, so imagine all the rain in a semi-tropical Pacific island location just dumping over the course of 48 hours. It’s hard to imagine how much worse this one was compared to the little sprinkle I experienced last year. Might as well put the place underneath a waterfall. I hope the affected areas can recover quickly…

Michael Turton posts on the letter Obama writes to Ma congratulating him on the inauguration. There is wording in this letter that has some interesting insight into this candidate’s perspective on Taiwan’s political situation.

Many I’ve discussed this with see the wording as being positive for Taiwan’s position, and it shows a clearly high level of knowledge of the intricate details of the Taiwan/China/US relationship. If nothing else, it demonstrates a sense of proactive diplomatic leadership. It is also unclear so far if either McCain nor Clinton have acknowledged Ma’s inauguration at all.

Where the word “sharp” means being a purely hypocritical tool:

Rice Has Sharp Words for Taiwan, as Gates Does for China

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice issued an unusually sharp rebuke to Taiwan, pointedly calling its planned referendum on United Nations membership “provocative.”

So a referendum on calling Taiwan what it is and requesting due recognition from the world community is provocative – hmmm… So then what do you call the hundreds of missiles in China pointed at Taiwan? Can we call that provocative too? How about threatening? Unnecessary? Intimidating?

During a State Department news conference, Ms. Rice said: “We think that Taiwan’s referendum to apply to the United Nations under the name ‘Taiwan’ is a provocative policy. It unnecessarily raises tensions in the Taiwan Strait and it promises no real benefits for the people of Taiwan on the international stage.”

Where being recognized diplomatically as a country is seen as a bad thing, rather than languishing in limbo due to the ludicrous machinations by the gigantic political entities that your island is subject to and having to deal with the difficulties resulting thereof, such as indirect travel issues, WHO membership, participating in the Olympics, oh and that ever-persistent threat of aggression from China. I’m sure some British monarchs were saying the same thing about us back in 1776: “They don’t need that silly democracy! Independence? That is for fools!” Is it not ironic that a nation so supposedly devoted to the ideals of freedom and democracy has completely lost all trace of its foundations when it comes to this issue?

I’m sorry- I’m re-reading that last quote and can’t help but laugh: “We think that Taiwan’s referendum to apply to the United Nations under the name ‘Taiwan’ is a provocative policy.” Does that not just bleed irony? Calling Taiwan “Taiwan” is now considered harmful. Rolling. On. The. Floor. Laughing.

I love reading Michael Turton’s blog, and I admire both the volume and the quality of his posts on Taiwan and the jostling of this wonderful little place between the political whims of two giants, China and the USA.

In response to the Kitty Hawk debacle, he posts something about a pattern emerging from China which I’d just like to quote here:

Anyone who has observed China’s relations with the outside world for any length of time has seen this pattern again and again. In the midst of negotiations with the Vatican, it consecrates two bishops for the state Church. In the midst of negotiations over the Torch coming to Taiwan, it denies a visa to the representative of the city of Kaohsiung to discuss games held there in 2009. Arriving in India for negotiations, its ambassador announces a whole Indian state is part of China. Some months back the Chinese government shut down an expat magazine in China that was widely considered the most sympathetic and supportive expat rag in the nation. China gets the Olympics, and crackdowns on the internet, and journalists intensify, while state security arrests double. Catch the pattern?

Is anyone in charge over there? Seriousy – why are we even bothering with these people anymore?

I just saw that Japan has now refused Chinese access to tour an an advanced combat ship.

Hu Jintao has issued a brilliant edition to what I call “Sweet & Sour” – the kind of rhetoric that comes out of the PRC that sounds sweet and flowery at first glance, but which is a sour and distasteful statement under the hood:

“We would like to make a solemn appeal,” Hu said at the opening of the ruling Communist Party’s five-yearly Congress.

“On the basis of the one-China principle, let us discuss a formal end to the state of hostility between the two sides, reach a peace agreement, construct a framework for peaceful development of cross-strait relations and thus usher in a new phase of peaceful development.”

Wow, great job at saying basically: “Bend over and surrender to your PRC masters.” Here’s another gem from Zhang Qingli, the Communist Party boss of occupied Tibet:

“Such a person who basely splits his motherland and doesn”t even love his motherland has been welcomed by some countries and has even been receiving this or that award,” Tibet”s Communist Party boss, Zhang Qingli, told reporters during the congress.

“We are furious,” Mr. Zhang said. “If the Dalai Lama can receive such an award, there must be no justice or good people in the world.”

This on the other hand is pure sour. And really, you have two types of sour: The good kind, like a lemon drop shaken and served up. And the bad kind, such as sour milk – spoiled, curdled, and nasty. This falls squarely into the sour milk category, does it not? I include it here for a bit of contrast, and also to illustrate the huge amount of pure unfiltered crap that this country is capable of spewing from the mouths of their politicians, which almost rivals our own Bush administration in its outlandishness and downright fictitious nature. Gruber provides the clarification:

Where by “no justice or good people”, Zhang means “justice and good people”.

The PRC apparently has much stronger crack than they sell here, and they’re passing it out freely at the party congress.

Update: Best law ever: Chinese authorities issued a new regulation in July 2007 that requires all reincarnations – including the Dalai Lama – to be approved by the government. Now that is funny. When people unearth this civilization tens of thousands of years from now, they will be laughing their asses off…

Check out this headline:

China says it opposes threatening Iran with war

Now check this out:

China renews Taiwan threat of war

Or this:

China Threatens War Escalation Over Bush Handshake

Or this:

China Threatens War With Taiwan by 2008

Maybe if China backs off on saber-rattling Taiwan then we can talk about your Iran concerns…

UPDATE: It never ends… China warns U.N. Taiwan independence moves “gravely endangering” peace

Michael Turton makes an excellent point: Why is it that the United States will rebuke Taiwan for supposedly violating the status quo between them and China by asserting their sovereignty with things I would consider entirely peaceful – i.e. requesting Taiwan be admitted into the United Nations or the World Health Organization, while we rebuke them for not purchasing hordes of American-made weaponry, then at the same time delay the sale of weapons already approved to Taiwan, all the while ignoring the fact that China has dozens of nuclear-capable missiles pointed at the island solely for the purpose of threatening to take the island by force? Never mind the fact that we don’t recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation, or that our executive branch has pretty much become the hand puppet of Chinese foreign policy with regards to Taiwan…

In what parallel universe does this make sense?

It seems to me that U.S. foreign policy needs a return to principle-centered leadership. What would a principle-centered policy look like? What would be The Right Thing To Do� What would Jesus do? What would Brian Boitano do? What would you do?

I know what I’d do.

There are three traditional chinese instruments that I find fascinating: Erhu, Pipa, and Guzheng.

The Erhu (二胡) is a two stringed bowed instrument that is played like a viola da gamba, resting the instrument on a leg and bowing with a loosely-haired bow that is situated between the two strings and pulled in a similar style as a German bass bow or gamba bow.

(Incidentally, the chinese word for “to play a stringed instrument” is “l��,” (���) or “to pull.” For example, a literal translation inquiring about one’s violin-playing capabilities might be phrased as “n�� hu√� l�� xi��o t√≠ q√≠n ma?” (�Ω��������∞���������?) Or: “Can you pull the violin?”)

This afternoon as I was hanging out in my parents-in-law’s house, I noticed two erhu’s sitting in the corner, and Yingwen’s dad said he had been learning the instrument over the past year or so. I asked him to show me how it was done and he obliged, demonstrating the basics of bowing and fingering technique.

The two strings are tuned a fifth apart, and they are close enough so that both strings are fingered at the same time. But you don’t bow both strings at the same time. The bow hair runs between the two strings and you change the direction of force in or out to alternate which string you are hitting. To increase bow hair tension, you have to use your fingers to pull the hair out away from the stick, similar to many historic western string instruments.

Fingering is also slightly different than your traditional western string instrument, in that there is no fingerboard. You simply lay the finger at the point where you want to stop the string and out comes the note.

Other than all that, it feels very much like playing a very tiny bass with a German bow. Not too bad at all. I noodled around until I found a decent rendition of the melody from Dvo≈�√�k’s 9th Symphony, 2nd movement – pentatonic scale, common to both American spirituals, the blues, and traditional Chinese music.

The zh≈�ngh√∫ (�∏≠�ɰ) is a deeper-pitched version of the erhu. I would seriously like to pick one of these types of instruments up, and figured I’d go for zhonghu since I tend toward the lower-pitched spectrum of instruments.

The p√≠p√� (����∂) is a kind of Chinese plucked string instrument similar to a guitar or lute. This instrument is even more interesting to me than the pipa. I have one recording of solo pipa performance and it is quite an interesting style. From what I can tell, the right hand technique is pretty challenging with it’s sustained tremolos. I’m hoping we can swing by a music instrument shop sometime while we’re here so I can take a look and possibly try one out.

Finally, the g��zh��ng (�����) is another Chinese plucked string instrument, but this one sits on a table and is rather long at about one meter long. It is like a harp or a zither, with moveable independent bridges underneath each string.

If I had free time (ha ha ha ha ha), I’d try learning each one of these instruments. This is the great thing about vacations when you’re an over-busy person: being able to try out something new and different.