Introducing Places My Family Lived Growing Up

I’ll share this short video I finished today with some of my English class students next semester. 我下個學期可能會用到今天才做好的短片向學生介紹我們家在美國長大的過程和環境。

Waking Up A Bamboo Viper

A few years ago this blog was mostly about cultural topics of interest to me in the countryside of south-central Taiwan’s western coastal plain. Since moving up to the relative isolation of the mountains, there has been less to observe on the cultural front. Instead, my recent blog entries seem to be more about terrors of nature!

For example, yesterday a customer at the restaurant next door commented that they saw a snake sleeping in a cubby hole above them. Low and behold --- a few minutes later family members caught a bamboo viper (青竹絲 Trimeresurus Stejnegeri) which had been hibernating just a few feet away. It quickly awoke from its hibernation and went berserk!

My photographs of the snake inside its jar tonight were quite fuzzy due to my hesitance to open the jar and wipe the inside clean. I was very careful when releasing it  a few minutes ago as well! That’s because this wiki entry says the following about the venom:

It has a potent hemotoxin. The wound usually feels extremely painful, as if it had been branded with a hot iron, and the pain does not subside until about 24 hours after being bitten. Within a few minutes of being bitten, the surrounding flesh dies and turns black, highlighting the puncture wounds. The wound site quickly swells, and the skin and muscle become black due to necrosis. The size of the necrotic area depends on the amount of venom injected and the depth of the bite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s a clearer picture of the same kind of snake photographed by someone in this same mountain village:

On a related note, just a month or so ago someone found another kind of (mildly poisonous) snake inside the main fuse box a few feet away (whose switches we flip regularly without really checking to see if anything might be lurking inside). Luckily, I have yet to touch or step onto anything when putting on my shoes outside, etc.

Arachnophobia in Taiwan

One afternoon way back in 1990 I was watching Arachnophopia in the movie theatre when, sometime during the suspense of the giant spiders, I reached down for my soda and put my hand on something I wasn’t expecting. Yikes! Thankfully, it was just a napkin which had fallen from my lap.

Fast forward 20 years to Taiwan. Anyone who has lived here for a few years has had one or more of these large unwelcome critters creep into their house.

In Taiwanese, they’re called LaYa 喇犽, Mandarin is 白額高腳蛛. In English, they are known as Huntsman spiders, heteropoda venatoria (also known as the giant crab spider or the banana spider—it has also apparently made its way to Florida, Texas, and California). Although their bite is supposedly harmless for humans and they help reduce the local cockroach population, I would rather not have them around the house, thank you very much! More than once I’ve felt one crawl across me in the middle of the night, or looked up from my bed to see one suspended to the wall. Aaarrrrgggh!! They manage to get my adrenalin going every time. And they are so fast—not easy at all to track down, although a direct spray of insect repellent will (eventually) kill them.

All this to share what happened to me last night. After a long day, I came in to change clothes and saw a spider I did not recognize from previous experience high up on the wall. It looked more or less like the spider above, but it was larger and had a white rectangular shape (about 1 inch square) fanning out underneath it. As usual, I freaked out, grabbing for the spray and hoping for the best. I managed to get in two good shots before it hid in a crack in the wall behind my wardrobe.

Relating my description to Taiwanese family, they said: “That’s a Face 人面 Spider!  tThey don’t usually come inside. We have lots of them here  Their bite can be deadly!”  So for the next hour before I fell off the sleep I couldn’t stop thinking that maybe we had one of these terrors in the room next door. I had better be careful walking over there in the morning to put on my clothes! Note: Latin name is nephila pilipes.

In the morning I found nothing in the room but had a few minutes to surf the net before work. Apparently this spider still manages to kill a few people every year or so here in Taiwan, but usually the effect of the effect of the venom dissipates “within a day or two.” I don’t want one in my undy/sock drawer!

This afternoon when I came home to investigate the room by moving furniture piece-by-piece, to my relief I found dozens and dozens of tiny dead baby spiders everywhere… as well as the dead mother. As it turns out what I had seen was the former “harmless” (except for the threat of  heart attack) variety. I had sprayed her in the nick of time… just before she laid her eggs… The egg pouch was the white object I had seen and now picked up off the floor. I feel very thankful to have seen her when I did… I’m told these things grow up quickly and I can’t imagine how hard it would have been to track down all the youngsters if they had hatched and had a few days headstart!

Interested in learning more? This link talks about the common spiders of Taiwan. Although it’s in Chinese, the next to last listing in the index shows you some scientific names with picture links.

Taiwan Leaf Beetle

As I was preparing for work yesterday I looked down at my papers and saw this lovely and amazing beetle which came in from the cold mountain surroundings.

Here’s a close-up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a better pic of the same beetle from the web:

For anyone interested, here’s a cool website of all sorts of beetles unique to this country.

Psalm 117

Praise the LORD, all you nations! Extol him, all you peoples of the earth! For great is his steadfast love toward us, he loves us with unfailing love. And the faithfulness of the LORD endu：res forever. Praise the LORD!

Other Related Verses:
Gen 12:2： I will bless you and make you famous... and you will be a blessing to others. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.

Ex 19:4-6: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians. You know how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth... And you will be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation.

Psalm 147:19-20: He has revealed his words to Jacob, his decrees and regulations to Israel. He has not done this for any other nation; they do not know his regulations. Praise the Lord!

Due to unexpected difficulty I encountered finding and navigating through online audio Old Testament bibles, I only included a few of the languages I had initially intended to include, switching to an appropriate NT reference for a few other languages.