The day after I left the Philippines, I caught a flight to Taiwan where I was met by my friend Yang Shu Chin or Christina as she calls herself in English. As you know or may not know I recently was able with help from my Mom and Dad to get a new or slightly used engine for my ultra-light airplane. I also wanted to find out if anybody was flying ultra-lights in Taiwan, and if I could get parts, cheap! Christina knew a guy who knew a guy who flew ultra-lights and arranged a meeting with him the next day.
That evening I decided that it would be best if I got a haircut as to not look to wild and maybe scare the guy away, so Christina asked her brother where to go and off we went. The shop was rather small with one lady working and was quite surprised to see me walk in. Her name was Miss Chin. Miss Chin sat me down and washed my hair and asked how I wanted my hair cut, at least that what I think she asked. In Taiwan, as in Mainland China, there are basically only two styles of haircuts to choose from. This is rather odd considering that there are well over 847,298,847,467 Chinese just within the sound of my voice alone!
Choice number one is the 3/4-inch buzz, which is where each and every single hair on you head is cut to precisely 3/4 of an inch. Choice number two is the Bruce Lee look. Now with the Bruce Lee look you get two choices, either the early Bruce Lee look, where the front is cut with bangs or the late Bruce Lee look, where the front is parted off to one side or the other. I opted for the late Bruce Lee look with the hair parted off to left, which was also the first choice of Miss Chin. Miss Chin started cutting, and hair was flying is all directions, though mostly on the floor, and Miss Chin was making doubly sure that not one hair was going to missed and that this was going to be a haircut that I would never forget! First she used the long scissors, then the short scissors, followed by the electric shears, then back once again to the short scissors just in case one hair managed to escape detection, then back over to the wash bowl for a shampoo, follow by the blow dry and, oops, there's one hair, a billionth of an inch longer than his companions! When she was satisfied that each and every hair was accounted for she looked at my moustache. I conveyed to her though very descriptive sign language that if she cut my moustache too short that she would be involved in an untimely and painful death, so she "just trimmed" it a little.
The next day we meet the guy at the local McDonald's, which unlike the ones in the States do not serve Chicken McNuggets but rather in fact serve, what in Taiwan is hotter than Bill Clinton in the oval office, is something that can only be described as Chicken McFeet. Which are sweet and sour chicken feet! I struck with a big Mac and fries. The guy's name was Mr. Su. In Taiwan you can't go too far wrong if everyone you meet you simple refer to him as either Mr. Chin or Mr. Su. Mr. Su was really quit nice and spoke about six words of English, which is about five more than I know in Chinese. We followed him out of the city (Kaohsiung, in case you want to know) and South about two and a half hours. As with most places once you get out of the big city the rest is rather nice, and this was no exception, as soon we were out in the country with green fields and mostly blue skies, with only one white cloud to be seen way off in the distance. Mr. Su owns a flight Park where he teaches ultra-light flying and Para gliding. He had four planes sitting there, three of which looked like they could quite possibly in fact, fly! We fueled up one; pulled the starter rope, no electric starters on these babies, and taxied out onto the 600' runway and off we went. Close by was a large river bed with an actual river still winding it way to the sea, or where every rivers go as the meander. We went up and over a extremely large Buddhist monastery where all these guys in bright orange robes, and shaved heads were busy gardening, then over some other monastery where all these women in black pajamas were gardening, then under a suspension bridge that was suspended over a garden, then back across some more gardens and finally back to the flight park where we landed and almost went off the end of the runway into a garden.
I asked Mr. Su about motor Para-gliding and he showed me one that he had designed himself. Which I must admit looked very well constructed. I then asked if he could teach me how to fly one and he said yes but I should learn how to Para-glide first. Since I've never tried Para-gliding I figured “What the hell, why not.” After a few quick lessons on the ground we headed up the nearby mountain.
My Mom and Dad had given me a camera to take pictures because I never take any picture, because I don't have a camera. I handed the camera to Mr. Su and told him to make sure to get some pictures of me, and he said, "Most assuredly, I would be honored and delighted, nothing would give me more pleasure." Actually I handed him the camera, grunted and made classic mime camera jesters, eventually he got the point and gave me the universal "ok,” sigh.
The nearby mountain is about 2,500', and as we drove up the extremely narrow winding road to the launch area, which was located about half way up, I couldn't help but notice that on one side of the extremely narrow road was the mountain and on the other side was nothing! The city planners had not wasted any money on foolish things such as guardrails or curbs. But by and by we made it to the launch area and as we unpacked the chutes, I looked off to the left and discovered that there was a small Buddhist temple, complete with the prayers and receptacle called the "Golden Pot" for burning the prayers. In case you are not aware, as I was, the Buddhist have theses papers with prayers written on them and each morning or whenever deemed necessary they burn them in the Golden Pot, which looks like it would make a fairly good Bar-B-Q pit and a charming place for a picnic to roast some marshmallows and a few hotdogs. I guess this is where the expression Burnt Offerings comes from. The smoke is supposed to rise carrying the prayers with it to heaven. Each sheet of paper has one prayer written on it, so the more you burn the more prayers are sent, which is actually not very efficient, as there are not many trees left in Taiwan. I don't know why they just couldn't say that each paper was worth, say, a million prayers and just burn one. Wait, I just got an incredible idea, since the Chinese love to smoke, why not write the prayers on the cigarette paper so when you light one up, you'll be sending a prayer at the same time. Perhaps a prayer asking not to get lung cancer! Sometimes I amaze myself. This could be worth millions! Anyway I asked Mr. Su about the temple and he said.
"You can pray for your safety by sending up a few prayers to Buddha before you jump off the mountain."
To which I inquired, "Does it help? Should I burn a few?"
He looked deep into my eyes and said. "I don't know…I'm a Christian!"
By the time we were ready to go, that one cloud I mentioned awhile back had grown considerably and turned a nasty shade of black and the wind started to blow a little too hard so we packed everything back up and headed back down the mountain. When we arrived at the flight park the wind was howling and within fifteen minutes about three inches of rain had fallen! It was a freak tornado! The wind picked up three of the ultra-lights and flipped one on top of what was left of the roof. In a matter of minutes all the ultra-lights were destroyed. And just like that it was over! But the damage was done, two of the planes were total wrecks, and the other two would probably fly again some day, as long as you didn't want to go over twelve feet in the air!
Mr. Su picked me up the next day, and we returned to the flight park. This time the weather was perfect so we drove back up to the launch pad, and unpacked the chutes. Mr. Su had brought along an assistant instructor by the name of Mr. Wu. Normally when you learn to Para-glide they have a special double chute that allows you jump with the instructor. Needless to say I was a little surprised to learn that the plan was for Mr. Wu to jump first and when he was at the landing zone he was going to talk me down with a hand held radio! I figured they must know what they were doing, as I hadn't observed a big pile of bodies at the bottom on the mountain. After a quick check of the gear we're ready to go. I handed my camera to Mr. Su. Don't forget to take pictures, lot of pictures! Mr. Wu jumps off first and flies down to the landing zone.
Just a quick word here about the landing zone. From 1,250 feet, the landing zone is about the size of postage stamp, if you're looking down at one while standing on a ten-foot ladder! The entire area immediately surrounding it and extending out for miles in every direction consists of mainly farms of twenty-foot high Mango trees, with rows of pineapples nestled in between.
Ok, it's my turn. Mr. Su gives me a last minute instruction, which was. "Always remember to pull on these two lines." Or perhaps it was, “What ever you do, don't pull on these two lines!" I wasn't quite sure just what he was trying to communicate, so I smiled if he smiled and frowned if he frowned, and gave the universal sign for "ok" when he did, besides I figured I find out for myself soon enough. I grabbed the lines, ran forward three or four steps, the chute filled with air, two more steps to go to the edge and, and the chute lost air and collapsed! Damn!
Not very reassuring when you're about to jump off a 1,250-foot cliff, but it's all right, let’s try this again. This time the chute filled with air and off I jumped! The second thing you notice when you jump off a 1,250-foot cliff is how grand and beautiful the mountain is; the first thing that grabs your attention however is nothing! A whole lot of NOTHING! Nothing underneath you, nothing next to you, nothing on top of you, just a whole lot more of nothing than you care to have.
A Para-glider chute is elliptical in shape and when filled with air takes on an airfoil shape, allowing for lift, not unlike the wing on an airplane. Attached to the chute are lines, my guess is about 7,569 of them which though the magic of macramé reduces down to eight, four on each side, that are called A, B, C, and D rings. With two additional lines for steering called Risers. The rings are attached to the harness and consequentially to you and is (the harness) designed so that you can actually sit in it. All you have to do, after you jump, is to let go of all the lines grab hold of the harness and pull yourself up and in. This in theory is quite simple. But in real life involves actually letting go of all the lines grabbing the harness and pulling yourself up and in, while dangling 172 million miles in the air! Since I'm right handed I'd figured that I'd let go with my left hand first, so in case something happened I would be able to hang on with my right hand for, say, maybe three milliseconds before plummeting to the jagged rocks below. But to my amazement nothing happened and I was able pull myself up and sat back. I made a slight turn to the right by pulling on the right riser and then pulled on the left riser and came around to the left until I was flying parallel to the mountain. It was about that time that I hear on the radio.
"Hello, Rainy. Come in Rainy.... Rainy can you hear me?"
"This is Rainy…I mean Lenny. Is that you Mr. Wu?" (Like who else would it be?)
“Oh, you doing berry berry good."
Under the excellent tutelage of Mr. Wu I head out from the mountain and over to the landing zone. When you land you are suppose to pull on both risers simultaneously which acts as a brake and slows you down. My first landing was not bad, but I didn't use enough brake so I was a little too fast. I landed on my feet but fell onto my hands, but other than that it was pretty good. As I packed my chute up two other students arrive for their first jumps. One was a short Taiwan police officer, who wanted to prove something, and the other was some guys girl friend who absolutely, positively did not want to do this, but her boyfriend wouldn't let her back down. When we arrived back up at launching pad Mr. Su and Mr. Wu are huddled together talking is low tones, (as if I could understand), soon Mr. Wu comes over and says. "Ah Rainy, Mr. Su say only have two radios, so can do by self?" I glance over to the short police officer,
"Sure no problem."
"Ah, berry berry good…you go first!"
I strap myself in again, verify that everything is in order, most importantly that Mr. Su has the camera, fill the sails with wind and jump. "Nothing to this." I say to myself as I gently glide out. "Watch this shorty" as I let go with both hands and pulled myself up and sit back in the harness. "Radio? I don't need no stinking radio!" I initiate a few gentle turns, look around, locate, and then make my way out to the landing zone. It was about this time that something was trying to creep from the back corners of the side on my brain that I hardly ever use and work its way to my unconscious and then oozes finally into my consciousness. It was an expression! An expression that goes, "You can't get there from here!" Damn! I’m not going to make it! I going into the wind and there's no way I'm going to make it back! What was it that Mr. Su told me about not being able to make it back to the landing zone? Nothing, the bastard didn't tell me anything about that. Or perhaps he did when he was frowning, I don't know, but it didn't matter at this point. Ok, don't panic; simply find an alternate place to land. There's something just about five hundred meters short of the landing zone, it appears to be some sort of clearing in the Mango trees about one inch square! So, lets see, there's a simple formula to determine just how large in fact the clearing is. You take the apparent size of the cleaning in inches and multiply that by my current altitude in kilometers, then divide that by six, No wait, that's not it, you divide by any number other than six. Never mind, I'll look it up after I land. By this time I can clearly make out the rows of pineapples between the Mango trees, and I turn to line myself up with one and head for the clearing. Only four Mango trees to clear and I'll make it…three… Damn! Number Two-Mango tree is rushing up it me real fast. I tuck my legs up under me and skim past the top on number Two and drop down behind number One. Hey, this isn't so bad! Now there's one more thing I should be doing about now…Oh, yea…BRAKE! BRAKE!!...I pull down on the risers and the chute fills with air and I gently land on my feet between the two Mango trees. Not a scratch, a perfect landing! I unhook the harness and remove the half a dozen or so Mango tree branches from the laces on my shoes. Cool!
The chute however is caught up at the top of the Mango tree, so I climb up and try to pull in down, but the lines are hopelessly caught in the branches. That's when six Taiwanese farmers came rushing out of nowhere yelling and shaking sticks and other hand held farm implements at me.
"Don't shoot…don't shoot, me fall from sky from big silver bird, er...from big mountain… There…Big mountain over there...big!"
Evidentially I wasn't the first dummy to land in their fields and they wanted to let me know just how upset they were and that I'd have to pay considerable more than fair market value for fresh picked Mangos. However when I demonstrated how I expertly landed between the Mango trees and had not, in fact damaged even one Mango, they calmed down and helped me retrieve the chute. By the time Mr. Su arrived we had the chute down and were the best of buddies and they even gave me a few choice hand picked Mangos to take home.
The police officer had already landed and we were waiting for the girlfriend. She was coming down a little too fast and she had decided that the best way to steer the Para-glider was not the conventional way by pulling on the risers but by the rather unprecedented method of screaming at the top of her lungs. Even the Mango farmers, who by this time had seen it all, dropped they sticks and hand held farm implements and gazed up in amusement. She hit the ground and did about thirty-seven various flips and tumbles and eventually came to a grinding stop surprisingly close to the middle of the landing zone. It soon became apparent that she was not going to do another flight that day or any other day for that matter due to the fact that she didn't move a mussel for nearly twenty minutes and was thinking very seriously about perhaps getting another boyfriend, so we decided to call it a day.
Next day found me heading back up to the launching pad, but I couldn't help but think that it was a pity that there was nobody around to witness this monumental occasion. This thought soon can to a screeching halt however, as when we turned the final corner there were two busloads of high school Taiwanese schoolgirls! I think it must have been the first time some of them have ever seen an American because as we unpacked the chutes they were going crazy, laughing, giggling and pointing. As a group they all said, "Hello, how are you?" Giggle, giggle!
To which I replied. "I'm fine, How are you?"
Their teacher said. "Ah, Berry berry good, English lesson!"
The pressure was on. I had to make this jump my best! The chute filled with air and I took two steps towards the cliff and jumped. The wind was just perfect providing tremendous lift and up I went. The schoolgirls were cheering and waving madly, and from far below I heard perhaps thirty or forty of them shout, “We love you!" I made a mental note to check with their teacher to find out when and where their ten-year high school reunion was going to be. Mr. Su was a busy taking picture and I was climbing higher and higher. I sat back in the harness and made 360 degree circles and still I ascended into the heavens. Soon I had reached an altitude that even the launching pad was the size of a postage stamp! I looked down between my feet. Wow, look at all those people down there; they look like ants scurrying around looking for breadcrumbs. No wait, those ARE ants! Ants on my shoes! How did they get there? By now I was way up over the top on the mountain, and I could see for miles, and miles in all directions. That teeny tiny minuscule white speck was Mr. Su car driving down the mountain to the landing zone. The lift was so great that no matter what I did, I keep going up. Mr. Su had told me through Mr. Wu that if I needed to lose altitude fast I could pull on the "B" rings. Ok, so let’s see here, if these ones are the "A" than this makes these the "B's." Simple enough, so I slightly pulled on the "B” rings and...Nothing I'm still going up! Yank a little harder…nothing. I'm pulling with all I got and I'm still on the way up. Something not right here! Ok, I get it; I'm so high that the lack of oxygen to my brain is limiting my ability to reason. Let's start over, but this time from the other side, if THESE are the "A" rings then these have to be the "B's"…Nothing! Damn, I'm pulling and tugging on the "A's" and the "B's" with a few "C's" now and again, and hell, why not a few "D's" just for the fun on it. Maybe a combination of "B's" and "D's" This isn't working!!
Forty five minutes have gone by now and even the high school girls have gotten bored and returned to their buses and left, leaving me all alone in a stationary low earth orbit. The ants have jumped off my shoes figuring they had a better chance of surviving a fourteen-kazillion mile fall than to continue on with this flight. "Houston ...Ah, Kaohsiung, we have a Problem!" I decided that the best plan of action would be to simply fly far enough away from the mountain to be out of the lift, then head straight out and over to the landing zone. This worked out well and soon I was high over the landing zone making "S" turns to bleed off excess altitude. I made a perfect landing right on the "X", turned my body 180 degrees and let the chute gently drop to the ground. Strangely enough I had landed on an anthill where a large gathering of ants appeared to be staging some sort of family reunion. Both Mr. Su and Mr. Wu were greatly impressed, or at least I think they were, but no matter I had impressed myself again as with so many times before.
We packed up the chutes and drove back to the flight park, all the time I keep thinking how great the pictures were going to be. It was getting late and its time to head back to Kaohsiung and I looked around to make sure I'd had not left anything behind. "Mr. Su, where's my camera?" Mr. Wu said that my camera was in the car but when I looked I couldn't find it. We searched from one end to the other but still no camera! Damn, I don't care about the camera, it's the pictures! It must have been left back at the landing zone, so we drove back, but even after three complete searches of the area we came up empty handed. I can't believe it! We had no choice but to drive back up the mountain. By the time we got back to the launching pad the sun was just starting to sink below the horizon and with it just about any hope of ever seeing the camera again.
We covered every square inch, I even climbed down the side of the cliff hoping that maybe it fell off and was caught on a tree branch or something. But all to no avail. Mr. Su felt pretty bad, but there was nothing he or anyone could do, if it's gone, it's gone! We all got back into the car and started the long dive back down, but there was something that kept creeping back into my mind. "Wait, Stop the car!" I jumped out and ran inside the Buddhist temple, and there on the alter, sitting on top of a small pile on prayers, all by itself, was my camera! Someone had found it and left it there in the temple! Unbelievable I thought to myself, but then again that's what I would have done, had I found a camera and didn't know who it belonged to, and if it wasn't one of those expensive Nikons! I picked up the small pile of prayers and using the lighter, that were also left for whom ever may need it, I lit the prayers papers and dropped them into the golden pot and watched as the smoke rose up into the dark sky carrying the prayers. As I turned to walk away, I looked back and said softly so no one else would hear. Hey, Buddha, I take back that wise crack about the hotdogs!
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