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East Asia

Taiwan - Longshan Temple

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Longshan Temple

Appropriately, we then went to spectacularly opulent Longshan Temple to see people engaging in games of chance to tell their fortunes. 

 

 

I’m interested in the complexities of this. How can someone believe that the future is already determined and yet believe that they can do something about it by knowing what it will be?  If they can do nothing why go to the trouble of finding out?  If they can do something about it then it is obviously not yet determined and therefore unknowable.  I’ve discussed this at length elsewhere on this website.

The day ended back at our hotel but not before we had some dinner at the night markets - Not quite Wendy paradise but heading in that direction.

 


Two of our party across the road - not inconspicuous - Clint's photo

 

Both at lunch and in the night markets we were something of a novelty.  There are few Europeans about.   But the people were universally friendly and didn’t mind at all big white people sitting in their little restaurants gobbling down their delicacies.  Smiles all round.

The Hotel was fine, if a little out of the way and we could walk a few hundred yards past car parts places and other semi-industrial businesses, to the local 7Eleven to buy some wine, coffee and real milk.  I considered buying a bike racing-suite and helmet, like the ‘Stig’ in Top Gear, from a shop that also had a Porsche parked inside, but decided that it would be ostentatious on the Number 30 bus from Mosman.

Rather strangely in this land of electronics, the Wi-Fi in the hotel was terrible and I was unable to send a simple e-mail.

The following day we arose early, prepared for a long drive South to the centre of the island. We were fully refreshed by the comfortable bed and fine shower and ample towels but I was disappointed by a breakfast making no concessions to European traditions.  I foolishly tried the cornflakes only to find them, like all the cereal, coated in sugar – inedible.  OK, congee and stir-fry it had to be.  

 

 

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Travel

The United Kingdom

 

In May and Early June 2013 we again spent some time in the UK on our way to Russia. First stop London. On the surface London seems quite like Australia. Walking about the streets; buying meals; travelling on public transport; staying in hotels; watching TV; going to a play; visiting friends; shopping; going to the movies in London seems mundane compared to travel to most other countries.  Signs are in English; most people speak a version of our language, depending on their region of origin. Electricity is the same and we drive on the same side or the street.  Bott Wendy and I have lived in London in previous lives, so it's like another home.

But look as you might, nowhere in Australia is really like London.

Read more: The United Kingdom

Fiction, Recollections & News

Love in the time of Coronavirus

 

 

 

 

Gabriel García Márquez's novel Love in the Time of Cholera lies abandoned on my bookshelf.  I lost patience with his mysticism - or maybe it was One Hundred Years of Solitude that drove me bananas?  Yet like Albert Camus' The Plague it's a title that seems fit for the times.  In some ways writing anything just now feels like a similar undertaking.

My next travel diary on this website was to have been about the wonders of Cruising - expanding on my photo diary of our recent trip to Papua New Guinea.

 


Cruising to PNG - click on the image to see more

 

Somehow that project now seems a little like advocating passing time with that entertaining game: Russian Roulette. A trip on Corona Cruise Lines perhaps?

In the meantime I've been drawn into several Facebook discussions about the 1918-20 Spanish Influenza pandemic.

After a little consideration I've concluded that it's a bad time to be a National or State leader as they will soon be forced to make the unenviable choice between the Scylla and Charybdis that I end this essay with.

On a brighter note, I've discovered that the economy can be expected to bounce back invigorated. We have all heard of the Roaring Twenties. 

So the cruise industry, can take heart, because the most remarkable thing about Spanish Influenza pandemic was just how quickly people got over it after it passed.

Read more: Love in the time of Coronavirus

Opinions and Philosophy

Climate Emergency

 

 

 

emergency
/uh'merrjuhnsee, ee-/.
noun, plural emergencies.
1. an unforeseen occurrence; a sudden and urgent occasion for action.

 

 

Recent calls for action on climate change have taken to declaring that we are facing a 'Climate Emergency'.

This concerns me on a couple of levels.

The first seems obvious. There's nothing unforseen or sudden about our present predicament. 

My second concern is that 'emergency' implies something short lived.  It gives the impression that by 'fire fighting against carbon dioxide' or revolutionary action against governments, or commuters, activists can resolve the climate crisis and go back to 'normal' - whatever that is. Would it not be better to press for considered, incremental changes that might avoid the catastrophic collapse of civilisation and our collective 'human project' or at least give it a few more years sometime in the future?

Back in 1990, concluding my paper: Issues Arising from the Greenhouse Hypothesis I wrote:

We need to focus on the possible.

An appropriate response is to ensure that resource and transport efficiency is optimised and energy waste is reduced. Another is to explore less polluting energy sources. This needs to be explored more critically. Each so-called green power option should be carefully analysed for whole of life energy and greenhouse gas production, against the benchmark of present technology, before going beyond the demonstration or experimental stage.

Much more important are the cultural and technological changes needed to minimise World overpopulation. We desperately need to remove the socio-economic drivers to larger families, young motherhood and excessive personal consumption (from resource inefficiencies to long journeys to work).

Climate change may be inevitable. We should be working to climate “harden” the production of food, ensure that public infrastructure (roads, bridges, dams, hospitals, utilities and so) on are designed to accommodate change and that the places people live are not excessively vulnerable to drought, flood or storm. [I didn't mention fire]

Only by solving these problems will we have any hope of finding solutions to the other pressures human expansion is imposing on the planet. It is time to start looking for creative answers for NSW and Australia  now.

 

Read more: Climate Emergency

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