Taiwaneers

Sunday was a beautiful sunny day. After church Emily fell asleep for a nap on our bed basking in the warm sunlight coming in massive amounts from our room’s wall of windows. I decided to bicycle down to a big park not far from our home on Taipei’s southwest side and do some reading.

Arriving at the park I continued biking through it looking for a good place. I found it in a bench on the edge of a big area of red dirt with tall, hardwood trees every couple of square-meters or so. The sunlight could still reach me nicely but filtered through the trees. Bright enough to enjoy and dampened enough to make it easy for my eyes to focus on my book’s pages without needing to squint. The area’s purpose seemed to be to give people a comfortable place to walk barefoot on the hard-packed dirt. Except for the trees the dirt was bare.

In the middle of the area was a woman. She was dressed in normal, everyday clothes. Very close to her she had a little push-cart. On the push-cart was a stereo that was playing “Taiwanese exercise music.”

I don’t know what else to call the music. Its very mellow, methodical, and simple. A voice every few seconds alternates between two commands in Chinese which probably mean “up” “down” or something like that. It’s the kind of music that never seems to go anywhere. There are no climaxes, no beginnings, middles, or ends. It just plays with the Chinese voice every second or so alternating commands.

The music is turned up loud enough to be heard in about a 50 meter radius but echoing through the trees its high volume doesn’t hurt your ears no matter how close you are. Scattered around this area of music are people. Men and women, all at least 40-something up to those whose bodies are so weathered from life that one thinks this might be there last Sunday exercise. None of them stand together. They aren’t lined up following the leader. It isn’t a crowd but a gathering of people exercising in unison.

The exercise is like a dance and everyone knows the steps. The Chinese voice says a command and everyone bows forward, sweeping both arms to the right of their body up past their back with a graceful control of fingertips. As they reach their body’s flexible limit in that direction the Chinese voice gives the alternate command and everyone reverses the direction of their arms without any lapse in motion. Timing is perfect. Everyone knows the music and motions well.

One very old lady not far from where I’m sitting is too old to be graceful. She makes all the same motions as everyone else. While everyone else perfectly times their movements so that as they reach the end of one direction they begin their reverse she doesn’t. She begins each movement with a push and thrust. Willing her body to movement she gets her arms and legs going. Instead of fighting momentum to increase grace she embraces it, needs it, to make it to the next exercise.

This is the setting I had for the next few hours while I finish reading Descending From Duty by J. Ryan Fenzel. Life is good.