17. As Water Reflects an Image, So the Face Reflects the Heart

"As water reflects a face, so a man's heart reflects the man." (Proverbs 27:19) I have always believed in this, and i know that it is true. Interestingly, there are two parts to this verse. The first part talks about a physical reflection, and the ease water can reflect an image. The second part talks about an inward reflection, how the heart can affect the being of a person. Combine these two parts, and i form an interpretation which says that the heart affects the thoughts of a person, then the decisions of a person, then the actions of a person, and finally the facial appearance and expression of a person. You can't hide what is in your heart.

One day i came home with severe bruising all over my body. I knew roughly why this had happened, as the red marks were symmetrical from top to bottom. I seldom take pictures of myself, especially of my body, of course unless for special occasions and this time being to show my mum what a brave boy her son has been in taiwan, and that he's still able to stand on two legs. Now i must start from the beginning.

It began one evening when my aunty 'L' known as 'L', invited me to go up into the mountains. To be polite, i said yes, and since there wasn't much to do at L's house, to say that i was busy would be asking to be exposed on the spot. So up we drove to the mountains. Though don't underestimate taiwanese mountains, the island may be small, but the mountains are steep. Half an hour later, we arrived at a massage house. How pleasant that L is taking me for a massage, i thought. I really could not wait to get inside. I have always been somebody who likes being touched. When i was young, my dad had to touch/massage me for many hours before i would fall asleep. And now that i am older and have more energy, it is always my turn to massage people to sleep. Thus, I have dreamed of this place, the massage house, for so so long.

Upon entering the massage house, we were greeted by three massaging men. Well-built, tall, thick arms - i'd say a it is a case of big talent small use. One of the men told me to take my clothes off. I took off my jacket. He wanted more. I took off my shirt. But he still wasn't satisfied. Okay so I took off my socks. But he disagreed. This time he eyed my pants with the 'ooh-don't-be-so-shy' look. And i knew that i was in big trouble. At that point in time i thought to myself: 'goodness, what could be worse than a thigh massage at this time of night?' But later on i found the answer to the question to be: any of the many shifty manouevres this massaging man stores inside his sleeves.

The masseur sometimes had me on my stomach while he pressed on my gluteus maximus. That is okay comfortable for a guy, but after a while, it became embarrassing, especially when he shifted my position a few times to wrestle-hold me in new postures. The standard thoughts of a massagee are things such as: "hmmm....", "go to sleeeeep...", "15 more minutes...", "yeah..." But the whole time, i was thinking about all the things a massagee should not be needing to thinking about during a massage. I figured that he mustn't be an experienced masseur to overly not understand guys' needs , especially when he is a man himself.

The masseur used a muscle scraper, which looked like a comb but it had some mass and was rock hard. He held and scraped it deeply and repetitively over most muscle areas on my body waist up and thigh down. The pain is indescribable with a few words, so i have to use a chinese idiom called 'sheng bu ru si' (alive not better than dead). Though i was not ready to die, i had learnt how to use the idiom. With each scrape, i would let out a singular side-splitting laughter. Just as seen on the movies, when pain reaches a certain level, the character no longer screams but laughs, because there is no more energy left for screaming. And why didn't the man massager stop his work at the sound of my explosive fragments of laughter? Because my aunty L had already paid him good money to spend time with me all night.

As the masseur was scraping, he was surprised to tell me that i was getting red bruises in the places he was contacting. I asked him why it didn't hurt afterwards. And he told me it was an uncommon form of muscular stress, that my muscles are constantly being exercised, and the red marks are just indications of the muscles that were ready to buff out of my fat and skin. Doesn't look much of it in real life does it? Doesn't even look like it with my clothes off.

It seemed to me, through the way that i was spoilt, that my aunty L didn't know how to spend her money. Not that it was a waste to spend money on me, but for the fact that she has so much money, i predict, would give her headaches every day. She took me to five-star restaurants and top-quality and delicate-sized-food all-you-can-eats, where i was careful of what or how much i ate just in case i scared L's daughter.

The streets of taiwan are peppered with small dessert like the one above, which would make a fortune if it opens in melbourne. There was a particular franchise called 'Ginger Female Duck' and its specialty was ginger female duck. As i was travelling around taiwan, i saw many times protruding signs and shopfront labels of 'Ginger Female Duck' written in ancient traditional font with its red-backgrounded and its delicious black duck logo. How i need one of those ducks, i thought each time walking past and seeing that sign.

Sure enough, one day, L brought home a 'Ginger Female Duck'. She put it in a bowl and called me enthusiastically to quickly come to try it before it turns cold. Quickly i was, to sit down on the sofa next to L in front of the tv with a bowl of duck on the coffee table. The first forkful was awesome! My eyes lit up to tell L just how wonderful it had tasted, and how it was twice as good as what i pictured it to be. And it was great! And it was tasty! And it was profound! And it was different! And it was flavoursome! And it was unique! And it was intense! And it was mind-boggling! And it was heart-throbbing! And wait, it was... absolutely disgusting! I was now up to my 12th forkful and my forkfuls were becoming smaller and smaller.

My aunty was staring at me with a kind smile. She asked: "hao bu hao chi? (is it good?)" Now to answer the question, i would have responded: "uh...bu tai xi guan eh...(not too used to it)." However, it was impossible that i could say that. Not after telling her just 10 seconds ago that it was awesome. So i said: "yes it is good." Then she said: "oh good, daughter and i have already had some, the rest of the bowl is yours. bu yao ke qi! (don't be so polite about eating the whole thing)." That was when my stomach began turn. And being inside my aunty's peripheral vision, even though she was laughing and commenting in front of the tv, forced me to eat on fork by fork. At this point, i could feel the duck gravitating inside my stomach as the contents of my stomach was ready to pour out. This agony was indescribable in a few words, such that i have to use a chinese idiom, this time called 'jin tui liang nan" which means 'forward, backwards, both difficult'. This idiom is usually used in the context of wars where an army is trapped in a dilemma, such that they cannot move forward to attack nor can they move back in retreat. Applied to my case, i was not able to forward any more food into my stomach, nor was i ready to vomit the contents of my stomach back to where it came from. Now that's some application.

After some time, the aftertaste from that night had still not subsided. Now, if you say to me the words 'Ginger Female Duck', i would give you a slow meditating look as i try to release those pockets of air out of my stomach. Yes even right now. Even if you remind me via sms.

(To be continued...)

16. Pleasing to my eyes

There was just something that i did not understand as i walked the streets of taipei. That was, the amount of basketball machines inside the city of taipei. I would walk from arcade to arcade to sometimes find rows of 20 basketball machines all lined up, and not have been surprised if three quarters of those were occupied. Sometimes the basketball machines don't need an arcade to simply be there; they're just there. Back home, basketball machines are some of the most obtuse things ever. They can be found in gaming zones and share just-about-equal reputations with whack-a-croc, wheel-of-fortune, roll-a-ball-into-a-target and feed big momma. If you wanted to play on one these machines in australia, you would have to think again, and come back when it is darker, to save yourself the embarrassment of being seen.

The way to play this game was to shoot as many baskets in a certain amount of time. There are three levels in the entire game, and if one level is passed, the player is allowed into the next one. Each level has 60 seconds. So that's 180 seconds in total. A good score would be around about 220.

One day, as i was browsing the tv at my aunty's house, i discovered what the fuss was all about. Celebrities on tv were playing the machines, and that's what it was all about. Tv also showed basketball competitions endorsed by celebrities. A major competition at that time was taken out by a 40yr old mother of two, who scored 880 points. You could imagine the stance she would have to take and what she would need to perform with her arms every quarter of a second. Though she wasn't a celebrity at that time, she soon became more like one. For the boys in the picture, they were supposed to be 'beyond cool' and definitely way cooler than basketball machines, but because of social influence, all things became possible. If a celebrity could do it, people don't have the power to put you down for doing it. If everyone does it, the action suddenly becomes normal e.g. coughing and spitting large phlegms while lining up in a queue to buy an ice-cream. It would be those 'normal' things in different cultures, which people do so instinctively that i find most pleasing to my eyes.

On the night of our tour graduation, a few of the groups were selected to give a repeated performance of plays/dances/songs which were performed throughout the tour. The graduation night was supposedly special because, besides the fact that it was the second last night, four 'official party' members were invited to come to watch in the front row or best seats. We were told to be on our best behaviour.

As i studied this photo, i began to realise that the hand positions of the four official party members formed a perfect evolution of a clap cycle. Starting from the right, the climax of a clap is when two hands are together making a loud sound. This evolves into a more hesitant approach, where the hands cup into each other so that the slower claps won't look awkward compared to when it is done in the together position. From there, it changes into a faint-hearted anticipation of something worth clapping for. The final evolution is of the hand position of the lady on the left: dormant.

The official party was being socially influenced in two ways. The first way was when everyone in the audience started clapping for a local hero after he says an in-joke. Everyone was cheering and going crazy both at the humour and the fact that it was 'the person'. While this was happening, the official party also decided to clap, not knowing the reason, but they did it nonetheless. Seeing that there were people in front of the front row taking pictures of the official party, they had a reason to put on some facial expression while clapping to show some facial appreciation, however obliged it may have seemed. The second way is seen in the evolution. The audience on the left quietened before the audience on the right, therefore there was a wave of quietness inside the auditorium. However official the party was, i was not so sure, but it was for certain that if a pretend clap from a majority had been setup beforehand, it would trigger the party to also clap, and perhaps with a simulated smile on their faces.

In conclusion, it is not only possible for celebrities to influence teenagers and young adults, but it can also go the other way around. In organizational terms, it is not always a top-down approach where management dictates changes, but the reverse can happen to give organizations a bottom-to-top influence, which is not extraordinary. Though socially, I look forward to being amused by this phenomenon.

15. How To Lose A Friend In Three Ways

To be continued, below...

So how many ways are there to lose a friend? Rumours have it that there are about ten, but here are the top three ways as i have discovered in taiwan.

1. The number 1 strategy to lose a friend is to talk about yourself whenever you can. To master this art, you have to be ever-thinking about what the talk topic has to do with yourself, and how you can apply it and fit yourself into the conversation. A typical conversation from the master:

master: so where did you go today?
friend: i went to a 'working house' store in near Taichung train station.
master: oh that one, yeah i know that one. me and my friends went there once to buy tapes and clothes. so where else did you go?
friend: well the science museum, i walked there after that.
master: you walked to the science museum? did you like it?
friend: yes i liked it, i really liked the rooftop display.
master: yeah, i remember when i went to the science museum and i dared my friends to hide inside while it closed. and my friends couldn't get out after that. oh, so funny.
friend: ohh...
master: but the funny thing is they had to spend the night there in their school uniform. i didn't want to ditch my friends either, so i went home to get a sleeping bag and slept near the museum window. that was just last year before the renovation.
friend: didn't your friends get mad?
master: yeah, but we do this all the time. one of our classmates can never get along with the other boys in the other class. and he always goes to throw rubbish or uneaten lunch into their home room after lunch. the teacher's expression was so funny.
friend: ...hmm...oh i went to see the native plant green house as well, that was good.
master: yeah...(silence)
friend: ...have you been there?
master: (eyes light up and takes a deep breath) I! blablabla...

Clearly here in this case study, the master is supposed to be a gracious and welcoming host, whose aim is to make the friend feel comfortable with a heart-warming chat. But what does she do? From the question asker, she becomes the question receiver, and she makes you wonder if all her questions are asked according to her own interests, so that as soon as a semi-satisfactory answer is given, she may take a deep breath and pounce on her own question - hard.

In taiwan, i talked to a very powerful girl who was keen and able to maintain a one way conversation. Every time i took a breath to speak some words, she would quickly cut me off with more tales about herself, leaving me to close my mouth and deflate air. By the time she ran out of things to interrupt me with, my face had turned red hot, maybe from all those breaths, but definitely from the build-up of intense frustration. And we talked for three and a bit hours that night.

2. The second most effective way is to show off your skills and abilities as a priority in friendship building. To master this art, you need to know how to avoid weaknesses to deliberately run into your strengths, while pulling others down in order to magnify yourself. Thus the main goal of a master is to surround himself with a group of people who awe at his skills and capabilities. Littly known to him, the culture of the group he creates is of self-interest, competition and jealousy. And little does he know, that deep down, people don't really care about your abilities. What matters to people is your sincerity.

"I remember the story of a taiwanese guy who dated a taiwanese girl. He was very excited to take her out to see a movie, though he wasn't too good with directions, and he lost his way. By the time they arrived at the cinema, the movie had already finished. Embarrassed he was, but he nervously asked her if she wanted to go to dinner. She said yes. At the end of the dinner, he discovered that he only had NT$100 in his wallet. He searched every single pocket for loose change, but still did not have enough. Neighbouring diners were turning their heads to look as they wondered what the fuss was all about. The guy stuttered to ask the girl whether she could lend him some money to pay for the dinner. The next day, the girl's parents invited the guy over to have a coffee. He was late by over three-quarters of an hour, the reason being that his motorbike had run out of petrol. By the time the parents greeted him outside the gate, he was huffing and puffing breathlessly beside his motorcycle with sweat dripping from his chin and helmet strap. In the end, the girl actually married the silly guy."

Just look at how hard he tried. If a girl did that to me, i may not marry her, but i would definitely nod my head and say to myself: "i want to be your friend." It's true that she doesn't know how to do anything. I could say that she is uncautious or even disorganized. But those things don't matter when there is true sincerity.

If it was a guy, it would be even better.

14. Double the Vision

I have never seen so many people pack into a single train station. Very shameful, my camera was not wide enough to capture all the people on the left squeezing down from the escalator and all the people on the right squeezing onto the escalator trying to get down.

This was at about 2:00am on the 1st day of 2007, where a lot of people had come out to the parliament square to celebrate the new year. This was at the final stage of going home. The initial stage of going home, which was walking out of parliament square, began at about 12:30am. In the process of going home, there wasn't one corner of any big city streets that allowed the space for a full-stretched yawn. The sufferers of course, were the vehicles that had happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. If there wasn't even enough space for a yawn, there wouldn't have been enough space to even open the door to get out and 'talk about it'.

Pedestrians on the paths were so slow, literally at the pace of snails, that after a while, even some old grandmas and grandpas could be seen rolling over head-high metal fences onto private property to gain a speed advantage via a clear path. This was pleasing to my eyes - I love to see people act out of desperation. I overheard an english man say to his taiwanese wife, in an english accent: "Goodness, i'm never coming here again..." And surely i didn't just hear that from only one non-taiwanese person that night. It wasn't a pleasant idea to sit 300 metres away from the centre of the action. Next time, it shall be a good time on a rice paddock 30km away from the city, having a picnic while watching the fireworks.

If you've ever attempted to stare at a space, and continue staring at that space, where a train passes by, you'll find that it is impossible to keep your eyeballs still, or fixed. Uncontrollably, the eyeballs would always flicker then readjust, and flicker then readjust over and over again as it helplessly follows the movement of the train. The only way to stop this from happening is to form a double vision while continuing to stare at the same spot. With the double vision, nothing else seems to be in focus, except for the focus of fixing upon the new vision. Now you are not scared of however many trains that go past or however fast they go past. This technique is also the secret to blinking contests. And if you're feeling as though everything in your life is moving so fast that you can barely keep up, or that challenges are non-stop and can only get tougher and tougher, then won't you ask God for a double portion of a vision to be poured out into your life.

Sam Hu

13. The Path of Giant Tree Countdowns

A well-known feature of Mount Ali is its giant trees forest. Some have been around for thousands of years, and in a certain section of the forest, there is a walk which counts down the giant trees in order of smallest to largest. A feature of the giant trees forest is its ability to enhance endorphin production via natural chemicals being taken into the body. Another feature of the giant trees forest is the exotic birds, which are supposed to make exotic sounds pleasing to my ears. But my favourite feature is the wildlife or a wildlife, or more specifically the dogs, which has dominated a large territories inside the forest primarily because people in the city don't want them to be running on the streets.

I always bring food with me wherever i go to add an extra sense to the experience, whatever it may be. The giant trees forest was no exception because it had already the senses of seeing, hearing, smelling and touching - tasting made me complete. But the result of eating too much is that you will have people scabbing off you. I don't like the word 'scabbing' because it gives rise to negative connotations such as 'stingy' and 'poor' on behalf of both the giver and getter. Therefore, eating too much will have people located thoughtfully and purposefully close to you for certain reasons. Not that anybody followed me around the giant trees forest, but that thought struck me when i spotted some dogs stalking me. Inside the path of giant tree countdowns, the dogs have clear advantages over me. They can communicate in their own language, they are not bound legally by the path and their dog holes are invisible to human eyes. Some of these dogs seem like they haven't eaten for days, and you don't even have to lift up their lips to see their growling teeth. But that didn't mean that they disrespected me in any way.

Close to the end of the count down, there were about five dogs following me. I thought that it was quite good of them to do so, so i sat down on a step to watch them. They too decided to sit down along the path around me in a semi-circle. It was nice of them to just sit down and spend some time with me on the path of giant tree countdowns, so i decided to spare some food. As soon as i reached my hands into my bag, all five dogs jumped up from their sitting positions and began to growl at their opponents. They swiftly split up into two teams, team one was to my left and team two was to my right, and they pivoted about so fast that i was beginning to get double vision as well as a little bit scared. So i pulled my hand out of my bag and was just about to stand up, when both the growling and the pivoting suddenly stopped. Intrigued by this behaviour, i reached to unzip my bag, and surely the double vision was happening again. After this cycle had happened a few times, i truly realised what it is like to be so powerful that something would be accomplished at a wave of a hand. But somehow, after another repetition of my hand moving up and down, the fighting had become uncontrollable. One dog was taken down by three others, and the he was dragged out and helped along out of the scene by his mate who was on his side. The three gave chase, and after a brief moment, i was left all alone. Interesting to know that dogs make alliances and defensive pacts with one another. They remain loyal to their team even when his team mate is on the losing side, and if only i had known more about the incident e.g. gender, age, blood line, history or hunger situation, it would have been touching story. For such loyalty and friendship, isn't it worthwhile sitting down to get to know some of them a little bit better?

The dogs have fierce competitors for food, so they have to adapt to the environment to be able to survive. The dogs in the photo have a house under the wooden path. Not a bad idea, because older dogs would have no reason to overtake it because even if they did, they would need to live inside with their arms at the same height as their head. And those longing eyes, tell me that they want me, but are too scared to come and get me.

It is a different story with bigger dogs though. If their longing eyes eye onto something, they will be all too happy to go and get it. I sat quite close to the door as i was eating at a hotpot restaurant on Mount Ali one night. The owner seemed kind to me when she stood outside her restaurant to finally pull me in to eat 'hotpot with all you can eat rice'. A hungry yet gentle dog sat outside the door of the restaurant and knowing that i had a hotpot, she snuck in with her front legs on the bench of the table, and her sniffing and highly vacuum-like nose high in the air. When the owner saw this, she told her gently to 'zou kai' (go away) because she didn't want to alarm all the other guests. The dog ran outside to avoid the scolding. After a while it happened again, and the owner was very apologetic towards me and asked her son to watch the counter so that she can keep an eye on the dog. It happened a third time, and this time the dog and i were talking and laughing over the hotpot. When the owner saw this and had not realised our relationship, she picked up something which closely resembled a plastic bag and heaved it at the dog with all her might as she followed through half a dozen steps. The dog immediately raced out of the restaurant, but after hearing no sound she turned around to see a piece of material float down towards the ground. The owner had a choice between customers and dogs. If the choice was dogs, she could easily close down the business to turn it into a dog house, while if the choice was customers, she would simply close the front door to keep the dog out. In the end, i spotted her secretly give a bowl of food to the dog to eat, a compromised decision. She didn't want to show the customers that dogs like to hang around and she definitely didn't want to hurt the dog. Her kindheartedness was her dilemma, and her dilemma (and the half a dozen step follow through) was our joke.

12. For Everything that is 'Nice'

In the last few days i have been to night markets, parks, mountains, sanctuaries, and i have encountered a lot of 'nice' things. You may ask, what is 'nice'? 'Nice' is something you see, or hear, or feel, or sense, which puts a smile to your face and a touch to your heart. And the result of that has you saying: "hmmm....how nice....."

On a visit to a famouse national park, i came across some geese walking along a concrete walkpath in the middle of the man-made lake. I decided to follow them along the path, since they were the only animals in the park. Waddle waddle we go along the path, until i realised that they were easing away from me. Here's something i found about geese. They calculate your momentum when you approach them. Because they value their own weight as large, as they are quite hard to budge even one on one with a person, they will study your speed of approach. If it is not too high, then they will feel very safe. I also felt very safe around them.

The old grandma next to me was saying to her granddaughter (or daughter, i couldn't tell): "Xiao xin, ta hui yao ren de! (Be careful it bites!)", but i didn't believe her. I gave the geese my finger, and after a few 'waaagn's, one bit me on the hand. The sensation was surprising yet calm. I do not recall the feeling but i could be sure that it did not hurt - because geese do not have teeth. When you pull up the skin of covering a dog's upper jaws, you reveal its fierce snarling teeth. And you say, impossible(!), how can something so innocent turn into something so nasty in just one hand movement? Try putting those teeth on a goose. When you lifted up its beak sides, did it surprise you?

The little girl in the picture seemed to be scared of the geese. But at the same time, by the encouragement of her mum and her want to play with the only animals in the park before it gets dark, she had no choice. In the picture, it may seem like she's turning around to say a caring goodbye to the geese, but in reality, out of her shyness, she was actually inching herself towards the pack very slowly - backwards! How nice...


Once she was close enough, her grandma decided to take a photo of her with a statue in the background. This was the way in taiwan. When you reach a certain destination you must take a photo of 'evidence' to show all your friends and relatives that you have been to a particular place. For example, when a tourist climbs a mountain, he doesn't necessarily take a photo with the surrounding landscapes, but he takes one with the plaque on the rock which says: "mount ali national park". It just lets me wonder what that photo the grandma took of her granddaughter at the same time i captured my photo, would look like. How i would give to see the awesome lakeside background, everything before that as well as an innocent, content smile, that would put a smile on my face and give a touch to my heart.

11. Returns to Taiwan

The plane trip back home was a breeze. I didn't feel a thing, i ate well, slept well, and had a good time to myself. Unlike my flight to taiwan, which had me feeling many things: ate horribly, slept terribly by closing my eyelids all the way through, had a miserable 12 hours, almost vomited on the flight attendant, had to continually spit into the vomit bag to prevent my extremely empty stomach from being able to throw up anything, basically gagging and spasming all the way through. I fixed that with a pill and now i love flying.

After several weeks of life back australia, i have finally discovered the key ingredient as to why i miss taiwan. Well what is it? The possibilities were relatives, taiwanese culture, shopping, creative goods and tour friends. I miss all of these very much but the actual key ingredient was not in the possibility list. The key ingredient was freedom - the freedom of no obligation, the freedom of independence, and the freedom to hold a camera wherever i go. Actually it is weirder for me to look like a tourist in taiwan than in australia, because afterall i am taiwanese. But i didn't realise that point, so it doesn't matter. Now i'm back in taiwan, and i'm very happy to tell you my story.

I came across a 'love auction' that was held outside a warehouse/shopping centre which has everything you'd ever dream of buying on the one level. This 'love auction' would receive donations such as anything to anything from organizations or private donors and they would 'love auction' it outside major intersections, which was not a good idea after i spotted a bunch of stationary motorcyclists staring at the auctioneer not knowing that the red light had turned green. This time, it was an 'everything must go' situation. They had televisions, blenders, saxophones and a lot of other things that weren't in the picture.

When the auctioneer announced that the next item was a fur ball dog, the reaction of the crowd was nothing. No reaction and no bids. But wasn't this an everything-must-go situation? Yes, so the auctioneer had no choice but to pull the taiwanese seller's favourite man-cringer:
"100 dollars, is your girlfriend worth less than 100 dollars?"
That, of course is making a lot of assumptions, but it was very effective. Actually, 100 dollars for a soft toy is quite a bargain. It was only because the auction team didn't want to take anything back to home base that they would offer cheap cheap prices. Now, this fact attracts people. But only people with lots of money. The people with no money however, were dragged alongside the people with lots of money, and power. And because it was super cheap, the people with lots of money didn't plan to leave without many bargains. I especially enjoy the expression of the girl in the middle.

Just like ageing, there are obvious signs of boredom. It starts off with a dreamy sigh, progresses into a patience breaking weariness, evolves into agitated rolly eyes, and finally becomes a smelly face. And it doesn't help that there are chairs there either.

On public transport, i sometimes like to exaggerate the effect of the bumpiness of the ride. I see the heads of the people moving left to right, so i try to copy that, except by overdoing the reactions of the bumpiness. So I'd put on an extremely normal, perhaps drainy and annoyed face, overdo the reactions, and then observe the reactions of the other passengers. It's fascinating, because they'd think that you're actually annoyed by the movement and that you're trying to avoid the shaky ride - which is perfectly normal. The plane which took me home was extremely squishy, the aisles were particular small and the seats particular unspacious. On top of that, i was sitting next to an old asian man, and you'd categorize old asian men as non-contact because they're too traditional to know how to touch. I couldn't really feel relaxed in the position that i was in - and that is, narrow shoulders, slim legs and constricted arms. I couldn't relax even though i'd taken the pill. Luckily, some turbulence came to cause some bumpiness to my ride. As soon as it hit, i started to shake violently to touch the man's left leg on a few occasions. He looked at me oddly the first time, but after that he thought that i was a normal person because every other passenger on that plane was wobbling. Then i felt tired, I spaced myself out - my arms and my shoulders and slept. After a while i woke up i found we were all over each other. And after i had tried to pull away our touching arms, the old asian man glanced at me for the second time for the entire trip. I'm sure that the extra space was also what he wanted, and he was just waiting for me to take the first step. And if your dad is asian and sort of old, he is probably too traditional to know how to start a hug. Won't you start one off for him?