Stop eating and breathing

The Government ensured that there would be no rising prices at the time when Finland changed its’ old customary Marks into the European monetary systems Euros but despite this everything seems to be much more expensive now than it used to be.
Then came the global warming and saving the planet earth from heating up and so began the campaigning for more environmentally friendly energy solutions with energy costs still soaring.

The EU in its’ great wisdom shared the pollution rates equally, that is in this case is not in equally big parts, instead it means each member countries ability, with its’ technology and economical resources taken into consideration counting the country’s ability to adjust into the required decreases of polluting carbon oxides and cuts backs are to be made in the emission. The poorer and the less developed the country, the less to take into concern about these matters it seems.

Statistical anomalies

I had my car's windshield replaced recently. It cost just under four hundred Euro, and that was a bargain compared to the other places I called.

Luckily my daughter can drive. She followed me to the glass guy one morning and we drove on into town in her car. The next day she gave me a ride to the place to pick it up again.

It was, I think, the fifth time I've had a windshield replaced since I've been living in Austria. I've been here about seventeen years this time. I had a driver's license for about ten of the years I lived in the United States, I suppose, and never had a broken windshield, and neither did anyone I knew there.

The week I had mine replaced, my wife's developed a crack and will have to be replaced soon too. And her car is bigger, so it will cost more. Luckily, it might be insured. Not sure.

This is how the cracks happen, I guess: a piece of gravel hits you on the freeway and you get a little ding in the glass. About one in ten of these grow with time, until you have a crack all the way across and have to replace.

I think this happens because they put gravel on the road here when it snows. Not usually on the freeways, but it gets carried on in tires etc and then tossed into the air when the cars accelerate to freeway speeds, maybe.

In comparison, it rarely snowed in the Pacific Northwest where I grew up, and I don't remember that they spread gravel in the quantities they do here.

Have you been surprised by any unusual clusters of events like this in your adopted country?

Book Review: Smile When You're Lying

[Note: I posted this on my site, Nerd's Eye View, too. But expats, wow, this book is for you, too. I'm a ex-expat now, but haven't fully recovered. And I fear remission.]

Maybe it’s because I’m female. Or maybe it’s because I’m a prude, or, who knows what it is, but I always find it troubling when sex tourism gets treated more with irony than outrage. Gonzo travel guys seem to visit these places and merely raise an ironic eyebrow over their tourist priced beer while not being particularly bothered one way or the other about the fate of underaged prostitutes or women who make money by writing banners with markers stuffed in … oh, you get it. It disappoints me when these otherwise funny, smart, insightful, (many positive adjectives here) seem to give sex tourism a get out of scrutiny free card. I have to read the sections in question in “Smile When You’re Lying” again to confirm this is correct and that I’ve not put the book down with a false impression.

Election Day II

As mentioned in my earlier post, a few weeks ago was the federal election here in Australia. By now you've probably heard that Kevin Rudd and the Australian Labor Party swept into victory on what the press popularly termed a "Ruddslide". I went to an election party that evening, all of us left-leaning types who couldn't wait to say goodbye to John Howard, and the mood was running high throughout the night. Whoops and hollers greeted the returns as each Labor-winning seat was announced, and they got louder and louder as it looked more and more certain that John Howard's 11.5 years in power was finally coming to a close – and with the coup de grace of having lost his own seat in Parliament as well as the prime-ministership: when it was announced that Bennelong had almost certainly gone to Labor challenger Maxine McKew, a former telejournalist, the room went wild.

After Howard conceded and Kevin Rudd gave his acceptance speech, the mood in the room was palpable. At least one person was, I kid not you, moved to a few tears. After more than a decade, their long national nightmare was finally over, and finally they had some hope for the future of their country. One of Rudd's first acts was to ratify the Kyoto Protocol (Howard's Australia had been one of the notable holdouts besides Bush's US), and he has also stated that the Australian government will offer a formal apology to Australia's Aboriginal people for the Stolen Generations. Also in the works are a repeal of the hugely unpopular new workplace reforms that Howard forced into effect (and which are credited with his downfall). All of these were alluded to in Rudd's acceptance speech, and afterwards we went outside to bat down the plaster pinata heads of John Howard (filled with gold chocolate coins) and his health minister, Tony Abbott, a right-winger and staunch Catholic notoriously against things like birth control, accessible abortion, RU486 and stem-cell research – when the Abbott head broke open, a rain of wrapped condoms fell onto the porch.

My feelings of being a political bystander notwithstanding, it was an amazing experience to watch such a significant moment in another country's history, to see such a watershed even take place in person. I may not have been able to cast my vote as a citizen, but as a resident I celebrated the results as heartily as anyone. And it made me realize something: I should really try to plan to get back to the US for Election Day, because if Howard's loss of power is anything to go by, the parties in the US next November are going to be phenomenal.

New dimensions

It's a strange feeling when you have lived in a country for 15 years and think that you've pretty much figured it all out and then you suddenly realize one day that there is a whole world out there that has passed you by completely for all those years.

We bought a couple of pretty good bicycles a few months back and have joined up with a couple of friends riding in the beautiful hills surrounding Taipei, which must be about as ugly as a big city can be. Lots of traffic, more pollution and even uglier square concrete blocks for houses, often covered in those small ugly tiles that makes them look like they are bathrooms turned inside out with the toilet converted to the tail end of the elevator shaft that always sticks out on top of the buildings.

It then becomes a true revelation when you understand that an hour on the bicycle will bring you up on a mountain with almost untouched forest, beautiful views, no cars, buses or scooters, clear, fresh air, birds, cicadas and the sound of mountain streams and rivers. And some pretty heavy breathing, of course.

A couple weeks ago, we took our bikes apart, bagged them and took the train down to the southeast of Taiwan for a three-day ride from the Pacific to the Taiwan Straits and crossing over the island's central mountain range at elevations of almost 3,000m.

The stunning views became more spectacular as we climbed. At times it felt like being on Huang Shan in China again or entering a Chinese landscape painting with trees or pavilions perched on high cliffs enveloped in clouds, and sometimes I almost reached that euphoric state that you can get to when you're sailing and everything runs like clockwork and you don't have to speak and you hear nothing but the sound of the wind and the boat cutting through the seas. Supreme.

It didn't even matter that it rained for two of the three days. This really is the Ihla Formosa, incredibly beautiful so long as you make the effort to get out of the city. It really was a supreme experience, and we're already planning for the next trip of two or three days. Or four.

So after almost 15 years in Taiwan, I am surprised to have discovered a whole new dimension to living here. Don't become too complacent and think you know it all. You never do.

(Here is the write up of the whole tour if someone's interested)

Election Day

Today is Election Day in Australia, and in a few hours we'll find out who the next prime minister will be – "The Turd" or "The Nerd".

Writing Contest

Brice, a third culture kid from Canada, has written me to let me know that the website TCK is holding a writing contest for expats, third culture kids, etc. Here is what he has to say (you'll need to get cracking as the deadline is 25 November 2007). Good luck!

**Global Nomad/Expat Writing Contest**

Have you lived overseas and have an interesting story? Are you an expat, third culture kid, missionary kid or army brat? To enter, simply write a story. It can be on your cultural identity, your life as a TCK, relationships, or an interesting or funny experience you have had. You can be funny, poignant, witty, etc.; it is, after all ... your story.

The winner will receive $100!
Deadline is 25th November!

To participate and for more details, you can register and send your stories to tckid.com

Upper hand of judgement

During his official visit to Washington D.C., the Finnish Defence Minister Jyri Häkämies told in a speech held for an audience at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies that "The three most important security challenges from Finland's point of view are Russia, Russia and Russia."
Since then the Finnish president Tarja Halonen, and the Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen have both been apt to publicly take distance from the defence minister’s comment. Even though the presidents’ chancellery actually had received a copy of the speech held by the Defence minister a week in advance it was to be held, the president’s chancellery obviously now seems to either have been pressed for time in order to attend to more important issues of the state or just considered the defence minister’s speech not important enough to bother to read through. The former Finnish foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja also expressed his opinion about the mentioned statement “showing a lack of judgement”.
The defence minister Häkämies refuses to step back on his statement insisting that he does not see where his views differ from those held by the President and the Prime Minister.

Third most guns in the world!

Apparently firearm ownership in Finland is the third highest per capita in the world, according to The Small Arms Survey 2007 done by the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva.
It is said according to the study that there are 90 guns per 100 people in the US, followed by Yemen with 61 per 100 people and coming third with 56 guns for every 100 residents in this country!
According to the Geneva based researchers, “gun violence often occurs in urban areas rapidly growing with extreme poverty creating lawless areas without effective policing”. I wonder how that applies to Finland, the urban areas with extreme poverty. I had no idea the Finns were this gun prone, but it sounds quite a lot to me. Anyway, I guess it is one person owing more than one gun, and this was not just handguns in the survey I gather, hunting rifles and shotguns must have been counted as well and there are a lot of people hunting here in Finland but it still sounds quite a lot for this little country.

Tatties

One thing that sure comes up to debate when socializing with the Finns is potatoes.
It is a question of which variety you are to prefer and the discussions sometimes tend to drag long as there always is someone with a different opinion form the majority of people present.