If you ask me what I am, my first answer will probably be "I'm a writer." Okay, I get it, that doesn't really make me special. Lots of people like to write. Lots of teenagers like to write. Yeah, well, me too. The cool thing is to see how much my life as an expat has influenced my writing. If I lived in America my entire life, I probably wouldn't have a fantasy story taking place in the ruins of Shanghai with a Han Chinese girl as my protagonist, or an Arabian faerie-tale that takes place in Marrakesh. So yeah. Here's a rundown of my main projects, from biggest to smallest:
Spark
A five-part book series that I've been conceiving, writing, and creating for several years. I recently finished the first book, Spark, and I'm now working on the sequel (steampunk!) called Ironsong. This is my main project that I've been working on for about four years, and I love it. Snippets of excerpts and more information are available on my main blog.
Chiaroscuro
A single-standing novel about a boy with PTSD and depression who sees a monster whenever he looks in the mirror, and can't stop killing people.
The Night Dance
The story of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, rewritten from another point of view. Ora is a serving girl in King Pierus' castle, and is chosen to follow his nine daughters when they travel each night to another world.
Showing posts with label china. Show all posts
Showing posts with label china. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Guess what? Taiwan doesn't like China.
Hello there, my amazing nonexistent readers. How are you today? Well? I hope so. Moving on.
You know what Taiwan loves? No, not manga or anime, though they like it. Not cute stuffed animals. Not food, even though they realy like that as well. Nope. What Taiwan loves is paperwork. Or, to be precise, what Taiwanese government officials love is paperwork. Superfluous, redundant paperwork. Seriously, it get to the point where you should carry your passport and visa everywhere, because odds are somebody's going to want to see it. Just last week I wanted to take a look at the Taipei Public Libary, just to see if they had anything in English, but to simply get it you have to be older than nineteen and have some form of ID. Not even to get a library card. Just to look.
Moving on again. A key difference (one of them) between Taiwan and China is that Taiwan's been rabies free for a good couple of generations. China is not. Actually, rabies still runs rampant in China, even in Shanghai, where I used to live. I should know, since I got bit by a monkey at a zoo there and had to get a series of rabies shots, and, later, my thumbnail removed. The thumb's perfectly fine, but my pride will be forever wounded. Long story short, China has rabies, and since Taiwan's the equivalent of China's whiny college student who wants to get out of his mother's house, they love making trouble for anyone coming out of China. Not that I blame them, but sometimes I feel like I'm stuck in a fight between two petty children. China won't realize that Taiwan's never going to become part of it, and Taiwan just won't get over the fact that China has a large store of missiles...pointed right at them....and they're not far away....right, someone tell me what I was talking about, again? The sudden fear that China's going to nuke Taiwan into nothing has paralyzed my mind.
Oh. Right. The dogs.
Which has meant that my poor dogs, Daisy and Happy, have been in the USA for sixth months so we could get them here. (The dog to the left is Happy.)
For the last two weeks they've been back, but in quarantine, just to make sure they don't have rabies. Even though we've gotten them rabies vaccinations since they were born and numerous blood tests show they're clean, they can't come home for another eleven days. Thankfully we got to visit them in the quarantine area in a city called Taichung (has a nice diner) today.
The poor guys have been stuck in a cage for the last two weeks, in this dirty hellhole they call a facility. Let's just say that Asia's standards of cleanliness differ greatly from that of the West. The sad thing was that I wasn't even surprised. I shouldn't judge, because it's not like they have the money to make it much better, and the employees were great (mathematically speaking, about 98% of the Taiwanese are extremely friendly. They have the highest percentage of friendliness in the world) but my dogs have already been through a lot. I'm surprised they don't hate us for dragging them through all the airports and planes, but they were happier than ever to see us. I love dogs.
Right. Enough semi-ranting for now. I'm tired, and the hour is late. Tomorrow I'm going sightseeing. We'll see how that turns out, yeah?
Story Word Count: 116,000 words and going strong. Seems that the closer exams get, the more I'd rather write.
Thanks for reading,
-Ari
You know what Taiwan loves? No, not manga or anime, though they like it. Not cute stuffed animals. Not food, even though they realy like that as well. Nope. What Taiwan loves is paperwork. Or, to be precise, what Taiwanese government officials love is paperwork. Superfluous, redundant paperwork. Seriously, it get to the point where you should carry your passport and visa everywhere, because odds are somebody's going to want to see it. Just last week I wanted to take a look at the Taipei Public Libary, just to see if they had anything in English, but to simply get it you have to be older than nineteen and have some form of ID. Not even to get a library card. Just to look.
Moving on again. A key difference (one of them) between Taiwan and China is that Taiwan's been rabies free for a good couple of generations. China is not. Actually, rabies still runs rampant in China, even in Shanghai, where I used to live. I should know, since I got bit by a monkey at a zoo there and had to get a series of rabies shots, and, later, my thumbnail removed. The thumb's perfectly fine, but my pride will be forever wounded. Long story short, China has rabies, and since Taiwan's the equivalent of China's whiny college student who wants to get out of his mother's house, they love making trouble for anyone coming out of China. Not that I blame them, but sometimes I feel like I'm stuck in a fight between two petty children. China won't realize that Taiwan's never going to become part of it, and Taiwan just won't get over the fact that China has a large store of missiles...pointed right at them....and they're not far away....right, someone tell me what I was talking about, again? The sudden fear that China's going to nuke Taiwan into nothing has paralyzed my mind.
Which has meant that my poor dogs, Daisy and Happy, have been in the USA for sixth months so we could get them here. (The dog to the left is Happy.)
For the last two weeks they've been back, but in quarantine, just to make sure they don't have rabies. Even though we've gotten them rabies vaccinations since they were born and numerous blood tests show they're clean, they can't come home for another eleven days. Thankfully we got to visit them in the quarantine area in a city called Taichung (has a nice diner) today.
The poor guys have been stuck in a cage for the last two weeks, in this dirty hellhole they call a facility. Let's just say that Asia's standards of cleanliness differ greatly from that of the West. The sad thing was that I wasn't even surprised. I shouldn't judge, because it's not like they have the money to make it much better, and the employees were great (mathematically speaking, about 98% of the Taiwanese are extremely friendly. They have the highest percentage of friendliness in the world) but my dogs have already been through a lot. I'm surprised they don't hate us for dragging them through all the airports and planes, but they were happier than ever to see us. I love dogs.
Right. Enough semi-ranting for now. I'm tired, and the hour is late. Tomorrow I'm going sightseeing. We'll see how that turns out, yeah?
Story Word Count: 116,000 words and going strong. Seems that the closer exams get, the more I'd rather write.
Thanks for reading,
-Ari
Monday, August 31, 2009
Books and Taiwan
Hey there, everyone. Instead of talking about books, I figured I'd talk about something less common: my life in Taiwan as far. For the record, I'm American, and so white I glow in the dark, so I kind of stand out in Asia. But I've been living here for eight years and counting, and Taiwan is the eighth place in a long list of areas I've lived.
So far, it seems pretty awesome. The people are nice, the food seems pretty good (milk tea!) and my school is good, albeit hard. In my opinion, Taiwan is a mix of China, Thailand, and Korea. The people speak like Chinese (mostly), but they don't act much like them in some areas. They drive kind of crazy, like Koreans (no offense, you guys; I loved living in Korea) and the markets and stray dogs remind me of Bangkok. Somehow it manages to blend together in this place I now call my home.
And, for the first time since I was eight, I'm living in a house. A real house, with a yard. And a pool. Not to say I'm biased or anything. The only downside is that my dogs are in America at the moment, because customs are being kind of picky. We have to wait until Christmas.
Now, the one thing that I have to say about Taiwan is: God, it is freaking gorgeous here. I live on a mountain called Yang Ming Shan (Shan means mountain, but I'm not sure what the other two words are yet), and it's about twenty minutes from the downtown area where my school is. Okay. Remember how I said Taiwan is kind of like Thailand? Scratch that. It's more like Malaysia, or Indonesia, or some beautiful, tropical place that is simply brimming with life. No one told me I was going to live in a rainforest. Well, I am, and it's awesome. There are birds galore, monkeys, tropical bats, mice deer and way too many insects for my liking, but what the heck. Yesterday my family and I went on this flat hiking trail not far from our house, and I swear it's like you stepped back in time, way back to the Jurassic. I'm talking giant ferns, big leaves and vines hanging everywhere, mossy outcrops and little streams flowing around. Gorgeous. Breath-takingly so.
Not to mention the fact that I appear to be living on some sort of volcano-like structure. Forget shan. My house is on Yang Ming Freaking Volcano. There are geysers and natural springs everywhere (and yes, sulfur really does smell horrible) and it looks like there should be dinosaurs, or someone from Lord of the Rings, roaming around. So far I've lived through two (minor) earthquakes and Typhoon Morakot.
I'm starting to think this is a sign. The first book in a fantasy series I'm writing takes place back in Shanghai, which is known as the Zhongshui in the future, about one thousand years from now. I was kind of disappointed when we moved because I wouldn't be living in the city of my story anymore.
I found out I moved somewhere even better. Taiwan is the exact place I imagined that Book Number Two (which I'm tentatively calling Bone Teller at the moment) looks like. Not kidding.
I'm really thinking it's a sign.
Over and out
-Ari
So far, it seems pretty awesome. The people are nice, the food seems pretty good (milk tea!) and my school is good, albeit hard. In my opinion, Taiwan is a mix of China, Thailand, and Korea. The people speak like Chinese (mostly), but they don't act much like them in some areas. They drive kind of crazy, like Koreans (no offense, you guys; I loved living in Korea) and the markets and stray dogs remind me of Bangkok. Somehow it manages to blend together in this place I now call my home.
And, for the first time since I was eight, I'm living in a house. A real house, with a yard. And a pool. Not to say I'm biased or anything. The only downside is that my dogs are in America at the moment, because customs are being kind of picky. We have to wait until Christmas.
Now, the one thing that I have to say about Taiwan is: God, it is freaking gorgeous here. I live on a mountain called Yang Ming Shan (Shan means mountain, but I'm not sure what the other two words are yet), and it's about twenty minutes from the downtown area where my school is. Okay. Remember how I said Taiwan is kind of like Thailand? Scratch that. It's more like Malaysia, or Indonesia, or some beautiful, tropical place that is simply brimming with life. No one told me I was going to live in a rainforest. Well, I am, and it's awesome. There are birds galore, monkeys, tropical bats, mice deer and way too many insects for my liking, but what the heck. Yesterday my family and I went on this flat hiking trail not far from our house, and I swear it's like you stepped back in time, way back to the Jurassic. I'm talking giant ferns, big leaves and vines hanging everywhere, mossy outcrops and little streams flowing around. Gorgeous. Breath-takingly so.
Not to mention the fact that I appear to be living on some sort of volcano-like structure. Forget shan. My house is on Yang Ming Freaking Volcano. There are geysers and natural springs everywhere (and yes, sulfur really does smell horrible) and it looks like there should be dinosaurs, or someone from Lord of the Rings, roaming around. So far I've lived through two (minor) earthquakes and Typhoon Morakot.
I'm starting to think this is a sign. The first book in a fantasy series I'm writing takes place back in Shanghai, which is known as the Zhongshui in the future, about one thousand years from now. I was kind of disappointed when we moved because I wouldn't be living in the city of my story anymore.
I found out I moved somewhere even better. Taiwan is the exact place I imagined that Book Number Two (which I'm tentatively calling Bone Teller at the moment) looks like. Not kidding.
I'm really thinking it's a sign.
Over and out
-Ari
Friday, August 28, 2009
Who I Am.
I seriously have no idea if anyone is going to read this, now or ever. After all, I am technically a nobody, just another person who want to make something in life. But perhaps someday, someone will read this. Even if they don't, that's fine. This is for myself. My name is Ari. I'm a teenage writer who is currently living in Asia, and I've been moving around the world since I was in third grade. I've lived in seven places in four countries (so far), and I've visited over twenty and counting. What I love most is writing. I discovered this pretty early on, and ever since no one has been able to stop me. My title work, Fantasy at Heart, is what all of this is based off of. Above all things I am a storyteller, living happily within my own fantasy at heart.
That's all for now.
-Ari
That's all for now.
-Ari
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