Sometimes maybe it isn't better to understand the local language???

They probably thought I could not understand them. The men in the elevator's conversation was about women, getting drunk, throwing up, and it being disgusting.

Park on a little mountain, "18 peaks" in Hsin Chu

Got some exercise by walking to what might be called the "top of Hsin Chu" yesterday and again today.

Saw that many people from the city were doing the walk to the top. Was very pleasant, with pretty scenery. Even was able to do pull ups, with bars all over. I did eight yesterday, but only six today.

There was even a guy cutting hair up here. People pushed parents in wheel chairs all the way up. I learned how to say "Do you speak Mandarin?" in Fukenese ("Taiwanese") from one of the sons who brought his Mom up (not everyone of that generation knows Mandarin, but most people do now. When I was here before, people spoke a lot more Fukenese.

[Sorry: I do not know how to put these pictures in the right order, so will figure that out next time]

Even was able to get a bunch of baojaos (plantain?) and a baked sweet potato on the walk down the mountain and home.

In Front? Way over there? The far front?

Today I found out just how different "in front" is in English from the Chinese "qian mian" ("前面“)。In English, "in front" means close to the speaker... but in Chinese, it means the direction you are facing. But I learned when going to swim laps at the pool, that the lanes "in front" actually meant the far lanes. In English, the lanes in front would have meant the close lanes, closer to, well, right in front of me.

Different perspective!

Returned to Astronomy by Going to Taiwan

I have returned to research as an affiliated astronomer! I resume my blog about my experiences getting back in, of going to live in another country, and of being newly married yet having to live apart from a lovingly patient new wife. I write about seeking career and family.

I am grateful to some wonderful people and an extremely pleasant institution in Taiwan for hiring me to to astronomy in this successful pleasant comfortable country that I grew to love when I was able to live in Taiwan for two years while younger. I am grateful to be hired without having published papers because not being given credit or participation after the "personal incident" that the Director of the global telescope forced on me. I use his label, "personal incident", for the events that he did not let me report, and for the events that were so ruinous for my career. A personally funded institution means no recourse for its members when it is the funder who gets personal when it is unwelcome. This blog is to chronicle overcoming this incident, not just for my career but also to have family. Career disruptions distort the process of seeking family given the oft-ignored fact of how nature does not allow for arbitrary delay of family. While working I had been clear of my intentions that my priority outside of work was to date as part of seeking marriage, with some urgency to do so at an age when we could have children. What this meant to me was how I didn't want to feel like if I should seek someone much younger, because such a consideration could mean passing up someone wonderful. It did turn out just this way, that I did meet an ideal someone that I wanted to grow old with. To give nature a chance to have children meant not delaying marriage. But the dominoes from the global telescope forced us to wait another year to be married. Now we are married, after the wonderful event in 2010 July. It is not good that we have had to live apart, though through sacrifice we manage to see each other monthly. It is hard writing about this personal priority, but it is essential to display what happens in science careers if science is going to change. I am grateful to a group of astronomers that unknownst to me submitted a contribution to the US decadal report on astronomy seriously challenging the astronomy profession's family unfriendly nature. So I write to document the result of seeking to have children along with my seeking to be in astronomy.

I also chronicle the experience of going to live in another country with different culture and language. My experience in Taiwan is more unusual given how I have worked strenuously at learning Mandarin Chinese as a hobby, and so come here with more than the usual ability to communicate. It is truly wonderful to be able to dive in and go anywhere without worrying too much about finding someone who speaks English (like in Italy or Thailand). There are still huge limitations with using another language, mostly given how in any new situation in which you don't know the vocabulary you suddenly become unable to communicate. It brings many unexpected results, most good, but I have had the occasional person wrongly take me to understand everything. There have been a few instances when I actually needed to be "babied" as a foreigner but wasn't given that chance because "he speaks Chinese." But the people of Taiwan are wonderfully generous, tolerant, and patient, and with only rare exception are delightfully eager to help.

My return to astronomy has been accomplished by starting a completely new project on "planet destruction." I have my first paper submitted and posted: I have gotten good attention for how "aborted" planet destruction, with planets migrating back away from the brink of Roche lobe overflow demise, may explain the pattern of a short period "pile up" that we see in planets being found today.