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My Sunshine Feel-good Piece

© Douglas Charles Rapier

I rag on a lot. I know that. I cultivate it. No sense in apologizing for the way I am. After all, it's not like I am going to go out of my way at this late stage to attempt radical personality transformation or manage more than minor behavioral modification. However, I have heard from a reader (i.e. roughly half of my subscribers and in this case, my brother) that I've been too negative about my experiences in Taiwan. I've given the matter great thought and have formulated this very considered response.

So? What's your point?

Honestly, I tried putting a positive spin on the nutso-neighbor-choking-me incident. (ed. See July article, 'Up the Down-stairs Nut-case') Irony is such a fragile tool. I will master it one day.

I will.

In the meantime, in-between time, in order to try to get my brother back as a reader (or at least a subscriber), I promised him I would write something up-beat. Something feel-good. Something that would help me channel my anger in a more life-affirming way. Sure, why not.

Here goes.

Let me gather my 'sunshine thoughts' together.

Okay.

I sometimes get really sick in the summer. Not only here in Taiwan but back in Chicago, too. I am not a tropical weather kind o' guy. Mr Temperate Zone, that's me. I suppose you could call what I experience 'heat stroke'. It's not as if I collapse gasping for water, my tongue swollen and lolling, and black-out like Gabby Hayes in Death Valley. But it's close.

Perhaps, it's something more like heat exhaustion. I first experienced this 'condition' after baking for 6 hours in an Amtrak coach which had broken-down mid-way between Chicago and Kankakee at the start of a scorching July fourth weekend. The air-con on the train was non-functional, the windows could not be opened and the temperature was well into triple digits. For reasons of 'safety' and wrongful injury suits, the passengers were not allowed egress from the train/oven. For several days thereafter, I felt like the eighth and ninth dwarves - Groggy and Queasy. The ones that didn't make the cut.

I know. I promised a light-hearted, feel-good article and here comes the feel-good part: I went to an acupuncturist and practitioner of Chinese medicine - she was Irish and had studied in Beijing. She diagnosed my condition right away as 'chung hsu' which she said meant 'an infusion of summer heat' i.e. a sun stroke. After the diagnosis, she gently massaged some acupressure points before inserting several acupuncture needles.

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