Saturday 10/12 A
Baseball Game,
&
Room 18 Gets the Best of Me
Today I
saw my first professional Taiwan baseball game, the Taipei “Brothers” vs. the
“China somethings” from the south.
The teams are actually called more by their mascot names, in this case,
the Brothers were the “Elephants” and the other team was the “Whales.” Yes, the slowest and clumsiest animals
on earth. The T-shirts had cute
cartoon elephants and whales on them and I seriously had to think about whether
I wanted to buy one.
The game
took place in TienMu stadium. I
met YuJung at the MRT station and from there we took a shuttle bus that went
back and forth especially for the ballgame. At the stadium her bf and his sister met us with the tickets
and showed us to our seats, which were pretty good, on the right side of the
diamond. The Elephants’ color was
yellow, which made up about 80% of the crowd. The blue Whales’ fans sat in one small section. When they yelled it sounded like all
girls’ voices, and YuJung said most of their fans are girls because the players
on that team are known to be good-looking.
Before the
game started a bunch of generic cheerleaders came out and did a routine though
they didn’t really belong to either team, they were just entertainment. Then Elva came out and did one of her
pop songs (Ah, so THAT’S finally the famous Elva), Mayor Ma said a few words,
then Mayor Ma pitched the ball to a batting Elva, who swung and missed.
As YuJung
had forewarned, the fans REALLY got into the game. Vocally and with the “Jia Yo Bang,” two plastic cones the
color of your team that you hold in each hand and bang together to make
noise. I learned many new
phrases: “An da” is hit, “Cuan lei
da” is homerun, “Shuan sa da” means double play, and they yell “Si ah” in
Taiwanese to an opposing player which means “die”, or get an out. If someone makes a good play they yell
his name and “Wo ai ni,” I love you.
When the trumpets play a tune everyone waves the jia yo bang in time to
a little rhythm. People yell at
every batter who’s up, and a fat guy in a pirate/viking costume, which has
nothing to do with elephants or whales, had a large yellow elephant painted on
his big bare belly and yelled instructions through his megaphone on what we
should yell.
A
ex-player from Taiwan who just started on the NY Yankees, Wang Jie Ming, was in
the audience and once came out of his top
box to wave to the crowd.
Everyone turned and pointed at him in awe and the big screen TV showed
him waving. When I got home I
asked Dave if he’s heard of him but he hasn’t. Maybe he’s a nobody on the Yankees; it must have felt good
to come back and get the royal welcome here.
There was
a guy on the Whales
who apparently had once cursed at the Elephant fans, called them “[Shit]”, so
each time he went up people booed. The first
time he got a double but the judge said it crossed the homerun line and was
homerun, so he smugly ran around tapping the rest of the bases and made everyone even more mad. People threw water bottles onto the
field. The next time he was up, he
foul hit the ball into the stands and someone threw it back to show their
contempt (if you like the player, you keep the ball), and everyone
applauded. They take the game very
seriously.
The best
players on the Elephants
were “Chia Chia” #23
who made the first homerun, and “Shoo” #50 who’s in a commercial for a fast
motoscooter, named for him because he’s so fast. It started slow, Whales scored 1 in the 2nd
inning, but then Elephants scored in innings 4, 6, and 7 and finally won
6-1. Pitcher is “tou sou” and to
slide is “hua lei.” They don’t
like to slide, there were many a time when an American player would’ve slid but
here only once someone slid during the whole game, I think Shoo, because it was
particularly important (sending someone home with 2 outs already). Maybe they don’t like to get dirty?
Also, the
opposing teams don’t shake each other’s hands at end of game, just their own
teammates’. I thought that was
pretty funny. The TV screen showed
Elva a couple times sitting with her friends, she holding one yellow and one
blue JiaYo Bang to show her impartiality.
Or maybe her lack of real interest in the game.
It
was a lot of fun. All the cheering
and yelling and JiaYo Banging wore me out and I was exhausted when I went
home. I had a couple of
messages. I called back Bill who
told me he and friends had private tables at Room 18 and to join them. I SMS’ed Ginger and Stella about it.
Laid
down, watched some MTV. Am forcing
myself to watch it since Dave says it’s a good way to learn Chinese plus the
newest pop stars and songs. US MTV
in my opinion is the epitome, source and conglomeration of all young urban
American garbage, nonsense, and lack of intelligence, and I shall never let my
kids watch it if I can help it.
MTV Asia is somewhat better in that it actually shows music videos, and
the videos actually show people singing their songs and people acting out the
story of the song. Versus, every
US music video that shows hoochie t&a bulging out of bikinis, regardless of
song content. On that note, I
don’t believe I’ve heard any Chinese pop songs about girls’ thongs, getting
caught cheating on one’s girlfriend, etc.
The videos here are modeled after KTV (or maybe it’s vice versa?) They show the song title and artist in
big letters in the middle of the screen as the video starts, and the words are
at the bottom during the song.
Maybe people watch MTV just to practice their karoake-ing.
Ginger
and Stella called back, both had seen a movie, Ginger saw Possession with
school mates (they all didn’t like it), Stella and Chris--I couldn’t believe
it--had seen Serving Sara. I asked
what possessed them to spend money on that and she protested it was the only
thing showing at the time they went and they hadn’t known what it was about
before going. Anyway, they were
both up for Room 18. I called Bill
to make sure bringing Stella and Chris was OK, specifying “two more girl
friends” so he’d know they were girls, and he said that was fine. There didn’t seem to be any kind of
list or name-taking, and we thought it weird, but I didn’t want to ask him more
details, he seemed always in a hurry to get off the phone.
We four
met outside the club where I warned them multiple times that we’d just met him
for a minute and had no idea who he was with or what kind of people they
were. “Uh oh, is he local?” they
asked. “No, American.” “Oh, OK then,” they said in
relief. Apparently ABC is some
kind of legitimizing credential.
We went in
prepared to have to argue with the door, but they let us right in and the
ticket girl asked for ID. At first
I didn’t understand and said [“We’re with Ken’s], um, party,” and she said
“[Fine you’re with Ken’s party but you still need to show ID.]” That was easy.
It was a
decent crowd and good house music, Stella said “DJ Apple! He’s good,” and we looked in the back
room where the tables were for Bill.
It wasn’t roped off or anything, just bunch of tables and couches. The door girl had said they had the
biggest table. We saw the back of
what might be him, with the longish hair, but it was dark and we didn’t
remember him that well. We decided
to find him later and went to dance, but DJ Apple had left and now someone was
playing too-slow hip hop; he’d been replaced with “DJ D.J.” (stood for “Daniel
Johnson” or something equally white), a white guy who yelled, “Who wants ta
hear some IIIIILLL shiiiit?” and started to play a good Dre song but rapped
over it himself, really badly, and stuck in some Chinese words here and there
with a bad accent. We all rolled
our eyes, I asked, “WHO names himself DJ D.J.??”
Finally
Ginger and I went to the bar for tequila shots, her first one ever, she
said. I couldn’t believe she’s
never done a tequila shot before.
I can’t believe she’s never done a LOT of things before Taiwan,
actually. She says one of her
goals in Taiwan is to get more corrupt, and I (and others) am going a good job
of it. I’ve told her it’s quite
easy to do since she doesn’t take much convincing.
There were
four cute bartenders and a plain looking girl working the register. I said, “You know you’re at a club with
mostly girls, when the bartenders are cute guys instead of cute girls.” Even though it wasn’t ladies night like
the first time I came with Gary and co, there were still tons of girls, and a
bunch of what looked like the same tall white Euros. The tequila shots were pretty big and decent. We went back and couldn’t find Stella
and Chris, then saw Bill on the dance floor and this time were pretty sure it
was him. Ginger tapped him and he
smiled and recognized us, and brought us over to their table, and told us to
help ourselves to drinks.
They got
more cups and ice and we chatted.
He said he’d looked back on Ginger’s site to remember what she looked
like. He introduced us to all his
friends, Ken whose birthday it was (said he’d been here since 9:30), and his
brother Phil, a skinny version of himself. I poured myself a 7Up loaded with Absolut and gave Ginger
the same. On the other table
they’d ordered food. I had a
french fry and a buffalo wing which were incredibly good. THIS was where the good American food
was. Dave’s been asking if I miss
wings, and I hadn’t really, but now after tasting one I suddenly did.
Stella and
Chris came over and they all made room on the couch. Pretty soon we were all pretty toasted, Stella and I quite
happy about the free drinks.
Glasses were clinked and raised left and right. A nice buzz turned into a full-out
happy drunkedness. I remember
telling Bill if he lost weight or if Phil gained weight they’d look
identical. Remember asking Phil to
tell us some crazy stories about Bill, and Phil just said he’s a good
brother.
Very
suddenly I felt ill, now the memory is spotty, filled in later by Stella and
Ginger. Looking back I think it
was the speed at which I was drinking and the strength of the Vodka/7Ups I was
making myself, because usually I can feel the very beginnings of the sick, “too
much” feeling creep up on me, which is when I stop and abruptly drink gallons
of water, but this time I didn’t.
This coupled with the fact that Gary wasn’t here to watch me like a
hawk, or any of my old friends who know about my tolerance or lack thereof.
Apparently
I said I wanted to throw up, so she and Ginger took me to the bathroom. I heard Bill concerned asking how much
I drank and no one was sure, they tried to count and remember. We three were in a stall, they holding
my hair and a girl outside knocking asking if I was done, they telling the girl
just to wait (Stella yelling at her “She’s not done, OK?!”, Ginger calmly
saying in polite Chinese “[Please wait a moment]”). I said I had to pee and thankfully they left me to do that alone. We went back to the lounge and Stella brought me some hot
tea with sugar, but I couldn’t drink it, then said I wanted to go home.
Ginger and
I got in a cab, she directed him to my place, and I threw up several times
outside the open cab window. The
driver was pissed, Ginger apologized, and when he dropped us she even tried to
wipe off the side of the cab, but he said he was just going to a car wash, and
drove off as she was wiping. She
came up with me and even remembered how to unlock my bank-vault door.
I vaguely remember leaning over the kitchen sink as she giggled, “Whoa,
I’m really buzzed. I’m SO buzzed,”
several times, finally I told her I was fine and just going to lie down, forced
myself to drink more water, and collapsed on the bed in my clothes, so she said
OK and walked home.