Suzuki Swift Mileage Up!

Just now I was happy to calculate that, even though I've been driving basically the same routes back and forth every week in mostly highway driving, my last two measurements on the Swift have resulted in considerably higher miles per gallon. As compared to the very disappointing 10.64 km/liter (25.03 mpg) for the first two tanks of gas, I came up with 12.97 (30.51 mpg) and 13.88 km/l   (32.64 mpg) respectively for the next two calculations. That last figure is down from $2.88NT/km to $2.16 NT per kilometer. That's a big deal since gas prices are finally being hiked now, having been artificially kept down before the presidential election.

I also got the broken wiper mechanism repaired when I went for the first 1,000 km oil change maintenance, so this week I'm a much happier camper!

April 5 Update: Mileage now up to 33.71 mpg (14.33 km/l).

Hiking with Formosa Plastics

Saturday morning at 6:00 am I met up with a neighbor who works for Formosa Plastics, a major company which large factories in nearby XinGang (New Port) and MaiLiao. We drove west to join up with 9 of his fellow employees from the two factory locations for a morning of hiking.

Last year they tackled Jade mountain together-- a two day adventure. Today was merely a "small case" for them to get in shape for later summer activity.

The whole day I was painfully aware that my Taiwanese language is not to the point where I could understand what they were saying nor participate in their conversation. Nevertheless, I was accepted,  and could communicate in Mandarin and a little Taiwanese as needed.

We started our hike at TaiPing on the side of Mei (Plum) Mountain in ChiaYi County, continuing over to 2nd Jian Mountain and Da Jian Mountain (altitude 1300 m) in Yunlin county near GuKeng. We avoided the more popular Hua Mountain, which I hope to enjoy some other time. Hardly anyone besides us was out there in the morning; we surmise the presidential election kept everyone away. The guys I was with waited until the afternoon to vote.

Before concluding our day,  we ate a sumptious meal of noodles and vegetables on the mountaintop (11 guys ate what was planned for 20!) .

The scenery around us for most of the morning were tea plants cared for by various farmers.

Having been 2 to 3 years since the last time I engaged in a mountain hike, I was somewhat fatigued from over-exertion by the time I returned home. However, there was one guy a lot more out of shape than I was so I fortunately didn't stand out in the crowd (except for being white!). Yesterday I heard from coworkers the pollution index was off the scale for Saturday. All in all a good day though.

Suzuki Swift Woes

I'm a little disappointed with the mileage I'm getting on the Swift. Having filled up twice now, I got an almost identical 10.64 km/liter  (25 mpg US) of mostly highway driving. That's about $2.88 NT per kilometer. This is significantly lower (almost 10 mpg) than what I've found on English web sites. However, I've found a few other hits where people report getting my kind of low mileage. For whatever its worth (probably nothing), I'll mention this when I take it in later this week for 1,000 km servicing. Why does anyone buy a small car except for wanting to save gas? On the other hand, I'm fairly satisfied with the advertised 110 hp at 6000 rpm... feels like what I'm getting.

There's a second problem as well-- front windshield wipers quit working!!! First, they wiped in slow motion and then not at all. Not to happy about either of this issues but God is good.

Eve of Taiwan's Presidential Election

Tomorrow  is Taiwan's presidential election. For me as a Christian, it comes interestingly enough on they day after we mourn Christ's death and suffering on the cross... the full day he spent in the tomb (and Sheol/Hades- the holding place of souls after death) prior to His glorious resurrection.

With regard to the election, With the KMT's complete drubbing of the DPP in the recent legislative election, many people expect tomorrow to be a runaway. Although I really haven't been following the news as much as I could, I expect it probably will not be very close, in spite of articles like  China Tensions Could Sway Vote in Taiwan in today's New York Times.

Personally speaking, the most highly anticipated event surrounding the election for me has absolutely nothing to do with who wins. I'm counting down the hours until 10pm, when the loudspeaker-blaring election trucks will no longer be permitted to pollute our neighborhoods with their obnoxious noise. :-) If I were able to vote here, I'd vote for the party who swore off the use of those loud things.

Eternal Realities

Last week I read one man's harrowing account of 23 Minutes in Hell, and in upcoming weeks will be reading in a Taiwanese language textbook about the traditional Taiwanese understanding of "Sheol", a concept very much alive in folk religion here. I plan to talk about this horrible biblical reality in upcoming months.

Along these lines, please consider the sad story below related by a Canadian coworker which transpired earlier this week:

We had a hard day yesterday (March 11/08).  There was a serious pedestrian accident in our town.  The little hunch-backed lady, who collected recycling items using an old baby stroller, was hit by a car.  We saw her crumpled body lying on the street close to where we live.  She was taken by ambulance to the hospital, but the neighborhood grapevine says that she did not survive.  In the past, when I thought about the reasons I am choosing to learn the Taiwanese dialect, I often thought of her.  I could not communicate with her in any of the languages that I know.  I needed Taiwanese language skills if I was to be able to tell her about Jesus.  After 7 months of study, I had been able to greet her and tell her whether or not I had recycling items to give to her.  I still did not have enough language ability to talk about important spiritual things.  Now she is in eternity and I will never have the opportunity to share with her.  There are still many more people like her in our community, but she was one I had met and with whom I had desired to share.  Language learning is very difficult, and will probably take a long time.  Please continue to pray that we will persevere in learning this difficult language.  We also need you to pray that God will send us some coworkers who already have adequate language skills to help us accomplish the task of telling the residents of Yunlin County how they can have eternal life with Jesus.  (Lorne White)