A jolly good day...

...as babydaddy has enjoyed saying recently. I went for an early morning fat-wobble around the park, which probably did very little for my virtue or my overall fitness level, but was rather nice if only for the profound strangeness of being completely alone after two weeks of intensive high-density family time (the loo being the only time/place for solitary contemplation, and even loo time isn't necessarily sacred with the behbeh, as she likes to fiddle with the buttons on the bidet thingy, which can make for the occasional surprise on the crapper). After breakfast (croissants. any fitness effects of fat-wobble instantly counteracted. oh well) Papa H. came and collected the circus in the minivan to go to the harbor to take the ferry over to the older, calmer, quieter part of Kaohsiung where the old fort & the lighthouse are. He said that he himself had only been there for the first time this year, as it had all been off limits under military jurisdiction until a few years ago.

The fort is now a derelict warren of cement bunkers sunk into the hillside; it was built originally during the Qing dynasty as a defense against the Japanese, and then when the Japanese took over Taiwan at the end of the nineteenth century they took it over and used it during WWII to fight off the Allies. I am really intrigued by the attitude towards the Japanese here; in the history section of the National Geographic guidebook, it says that the Japanese imposed a fairly brutal military rule over the Taiwanese for the first half of the twentieth century but that they also modernized and organized the island in a way that no one previously had been able to do (railways, telecommunications, etc.). When they were kicked out after WWII and the Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang government took over, the Taiwanese were initially "elated" (according to my book) but soon realized they'd traded in the frying pan for the fire. Many elderly people who came of age under Japanese rule (babydaddy's grandmother, for one) are very pro-Japanese, an attitude that has apparently persisted, despite the fact that the Japanese arrived as conquering invaders, and even more weirdly, the Kuomintang is still one of the two dominant political parties here, despite the hash that Chiang Kai-shek made of running the country after the Japanese were kicked out. Anyway. I digress. The fort was fun to climb around, especially on a brilliantly sunny day with views out over the bright blue ocean for miles and miles, and jungle behind. Lighthouse ditto.

We had another paparazzi experience on the ferry coming back; I haven't figured out whether it's the exotic factor of being foreigners, or the freak factor of being mixies, or just that they are both extraordinarily cute (I choose to believe the latter) but both baby and her cousin get an inordinate amount of attention when we are out, and occasionally there's a mini mob scene of people wanting to touch them, take pictures of them, etc. (I am not making this up). I got told off by a lady who wanted to tell me how cute the baby was that she thought it was disgraceful that I had a half-Taiwanese one-year-old and that I still didn't speak Chinese, but, hey, she told me in Chinese, so I said thank you and nodded and smiled, which works brilliantly. I still think it's amazing that I can very, very occasionally figure out what the conversation is about (I do best with conversations involving cats, fish, and flowers, especially if the location of cats/fish/flowers is being discussed, but I can branch out and discuss tigers, dragons, frogs, rabbits, and noodles when the situation demands).

Next stop on the papa H. tour was the ex-British consular residence, which in standard high-handed colonial style consisted of a Victorian pile of bricks bang next to an elaborate dragon-infested temple on probably the most primo piece of real estate in Kaohsiung. (Rule Britannia! Snag the best piece of land going and never mind the brown people who've been there for generations!) I did learn about Robert Swinhoe, however, who sounds like he must have been a pretty interesting dinner companion - in addition to helping broker treaties between the English and the Chinese during the Opium Wars, because he was one of the few Brits who spoke Chinese, he also found time to be one of the first British consuls to Taiwan AND be one of the foremost naturalists of his generation, getting a whole pile of species endemic to Taiwan named after him. (And he did all that before he died in his early 40's, which means that I need to get cracking if I am going to be famous. Writing a blog that only my parents read just isn't going to cut it... :p)

The temple incidentally had a little sign which read "Speak kind words, think good thoughts, do good deeds, and follow the right path," which sort of says it all, I think.

Home for lunch and nap and more of the Australian Open (I am intrigued by Nadal's complete lack of upper lip and am worried he might have fetal alcohol syndrome, but cannot find any confirming rumours on the internet - anyone?) and then out for dinner at a fancypants restaurant with cousins. I am profoundly glad that I am (as a clueless white person) out of the loop of the whole politics of money/food here. The drama of Who Pays for the Meal beggars description. Babydaddy and Big Kahuna are expected to take about fifty cousins out to dinner on Thursday night, and EVERYONE IS WATCHING to make sure that the meal is sufficiently expensive to satisfy honour. Me, I eat what's put in front of me, do my best to make sure that the baby eats what's put in front of her rather than rubbing it in her hair (varying degrees of success with that one), and say thank you nicely, and thank Christ that I don't seem to be expected to participate beyond that.

Tonight's restaurant was several floors of banquet tables decked out in schlock-Versailles: fringes of chandelier crystals everywhere, red and gold wallpaper, a chair rail incorporating a motif of cherubs modestly kitted out in (I am not making this up) hot pants & halter tops. There is very little effort to disguise the behind-the-scenes action, which is sort of interesting - at one point the baby was squawking, so I took her for a little walk around the restaurant in the vain hope that she would fall asleep in the backpack thingy, and we wandered into a largeish room right next to the Ladies' where folding tables were shoved in a pile, there was a mop and a bucket of some dirty water, someone's chef whites on a hook, etc. I rocked her and sang her some Paul Simon and did my very best to come up with a concise foolproof explanation as to why I would be hiding behind a stack of chairs in a dark room with my baby that would possibly make sense to a Chinese-only speaking waiter, but in the end decided that she wasn't going to sleep and there wasn't an easy explanation, so we went back to the table and shoved bits of fish down her until she stopped squawking. I think she is going through some sort of bionic growth spurt right now; she actually ate more at dinner than I did.

And now in bed - a sweet and prolonged bedtime with baby, reading books and singing all three of us on the bed together until she finally keeled over into favored sleeping position (triangular, with bum at apex of triangle). Babydaddy and siblings have headed out to hit the party scene with some cousins, and I am tucked up in bed hoping very much that I do not have a sore throat. We'll find out in the morning whether I actually do or not; we are scheduled to go to Tainan for the day, hometown of wild mama H., and possibly to go to a portrait studio to get a formal family portrait done. Big Kahuna says some of the posher portrait studios have wind machines so you can have the full hair-blowing-around supermodel effect, which I definitely, definitely want.

In the meantime: good night and good luck.