Cruising Around: Exploring Close to Home.

Have Wheelchair will Travel

The weather here has become Autumn weather.  So the temperature has come down, a fresh little breeze is blowing and the weather is perfect for a cruise on the the old scooter.  So after I got back from my morning trip to downtown Taoyuan I decided to hit the open road.  I took a few pictures of some things that I thought were interesting or beautiful, or both, as the case may be.  I've recently been spending quite a bit of time looking at photographer Craig Ferguson's travel photos.  His photos are so good that I'm almost intimidated to take pictures.  His are art, mine should be in your grandmother's scrapbook.  You can see Craig's excellent photos at http://www.craigfergusonimages.com  and you'll see why I'm intimidated.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not that good a photographer, basically because I'm lazy.  I have a small digital camera and mostly take snapshot like photos.  I'm wanting to get a really good, digital camera, like a canon rebel with a 55mm to 128mm lens or some other technical stuff.  I had a nice SLR film camera, but film is a pain when you're using it to blog.  So, I guess I'm not too technical when it comes to cameras.  I have a friend who's so technical that he uses only numbers when he talks.  Anyway such as they are, here are my photos and a brief description

These three photos above are a a large Taoist temple.  I found this temple by following a line of lanterns hung from the telephone poles.  The lanterns are red and spherical.  They're the common lanterns that are sold in Chinese gift shops across America.  They have a purpose beyond decoration and that purpose is to point out the location of a temple.  If you see lanterns strung down the side of a road and follow them they will end at a temple site.

This is a photo of the garden in front of my apartment community.  Many apartments have a beautiful park like Garden for the residents to enjoy.  My daughter Elizabeth loves to take her laptop down to the garden to do her schoolwork.  I have on occasion sat down there in the morning to pray.  It's really very beautiful. 

This stream seems to appear out of nowhere.  On one side of the road is the pond in the picture above where the temple roof can be seen and on the other side of the road is this stream.  But I can't see what feeds the pond.  It's just there, then this stream.  But the stream isn't a trickle it's a pretty good sized creek.  In order to find the source, I'm probably going to have to get off the bike and explore, but I think it would be hard with a wheel chair.  You can see the brush is fairly thick.  So...I guess I'll have to make Emily and Elizabeth do it.

You can see how close I am to the city right here.  This is about three quarters of a kilometer from my apartment.  Elizabeth found this place while walking her dog.















This is the same field as the one in the picture above.  The birds are called Egrets, in English, I don't know what they're called in Chinese.  These are the birds that are often depicted in Chinese art.  Usually they're called Cranes, although, I don't believe they are Cranes in a  taxonomic sense.

 

The first photo in this group of two is a photo of an altar.  You can see on the altar is a small incense urn, with sticks of incense sticking out of it.  There is a statue of the Goddess on there as well.  So people in this small neighborhood probably burn incense the local deity here.  The incense sticks tell me that someone worshiped here before I came this morning.  The bottom photo is of a couple of family tombs.  These two tombs are beautifully cared for.  You cans see an incense urn and two vases for flowers on the one on the left.  The character in the circle on the top of the one on the right is Wang, a family name, which translates to King.



After I left this road, I circled back and went about 2 kilometers down another road, which leads to a city called Ping Zhen (Ping Jun).  As I came out of the city I came across another stream and found this guy fishing.

A little farther down I came across this apartment community.  the interesting thing here is that this community has a private temple for worshipers living in the community.  I haven't often seen that.

Finally, as I turned toward my own community, I came across this cool little car.  This car is run by a dog grooming company who apparently comes to your house to groom your dog.  You see a lot of these little "VW buses".  They're made from a kit.  I've seen a number of them outfitted for serving hot food off the back.  the panels fold up and in to reveal a propane grill and preparation table.  I've even seen one made to be a small van.  They used a pink one as a van in an Idol Drama, starring Joe Cheng and Ariel Lin called, "It Started with a Kiss."  I like the little paw print shaped vents on this one.

Photos by Chris and Emily Banducci

Other posts you may be interested in:

Clearing Out the Camera:  Random Shots of Taiwan
Local Color:  The Color is Green
Local Color:  The Colors of Kenting
Local Color:  The Temples of Taoyuan City

Living in Taiwan: The Wheelchair Scooter

Places that I go that require walking long distances or dealing with large crowds are difficult for me.  I get tired quickly and after about an hour I’m completely exhausted.  Crowds present a different problem because of all the jostling and quick stops I have a tendency to lose balance and fall.  It is no fun laying on the ground in a large crowd.  People fall over you or trample you.  It can be a bit intimidating.  So in those types of situations I use a wheelchair.  The problem with wheel chairs in my situation, is that because of the Muscular Dystrophy and muscle wasting that comes with that, it’s difficult for me to maneuver or move the chair on some surfaces.  I do okay on tile floors or cement sidewalks but carpet and asphalt are more difficult.  So I have to depend on the love and care of a relative or friend to move me along.

We have all seen those little electric mobility scooters.  They either have three or four wheels and they travel really slowly.  These have been great thing for disabled people providing them mobility and access to places they might not otherwise be able to go.  The problem with them for me is that they are primarily designed for short trips.  I can’t drive a mobility scooter 12 kilometers to Daxi.  They’re wonderful for a short trip through the neighborhood, but not for long rides.

When I moved to Taiwan, I discovered an excellent solution to the mobility problem.  It travels at roadway speeds.  It gives you all the fun and freedom of a regular scooter and allows you complete independence:  The Wheelchair Scooter.  This is a scooter that is designed to accommodate a wheelchair. 

The wheelchair scooter is another modification of a standard scooter.  I have a modified scooter, with extra wheels to give me stability to get on and off, but this is a modification that allows you to drive your scooter while remaining in your wheelchair. 

Any company that customizes scooters can help you to modify your scooter to accommodate a wheelchair.  Actually the scooter dealer can make all of the arrangements and include the modifications in the sale price. 

A regular scooter is cut in half.  The front wheel and handlebars are placed in front of a box, with a hinged ramp like door.  The rear of the bike is then attached to the side of the box.  On the other side of the box is another wheel.  The result is a type of trike, with the engine and drive wheel on one side along with a passenger seat.  The driver sits in his wheelchair safely locked into the box and steer and operates the scooter with his hands.  The scooters, as with all scooters are completely hand operated.

The scooter will travel at road speeds, is stable and easy to drive.  The only difficulty is parking.  It is much too large for a regular scooter parking spot and too small to use a car spot.  However, it has been my experience that the police are tolerant of disability scooters parking in places where they wouldn’t allow a regular scooter to park. 

There's room for a passenger on the seat.

I once parked in a place where a number of scooters were parked only to come back and find all the scooters but mine were towed a way.  I think there are two reasons for this one personal and one economic.  Police like everyone have compassion and realize that people with disabilities may need to park closer to the building than others.  The economic reason is that my disability scooter takes up two places in the towing vehicle.  That’s one less impound charge for the towing company. 

The following video is by Mordeth 13:

Other posts you may be interested in:

Living in Taiwan:  Coping with Disability
Traveling with M13:  Custom Scooters of Taiwan
Rolling East:  Traveling in a Wheelchair

Photo credits:  http://www.mobilityzone.co.uk/acatalog/Shoprider_Cordoba_Mobility_Scooter.html

Wheel Chair Scooter: (screen capture)  Mordeth 13 (M13)
Thanks to M13 for the use of his video, Wheelchair Scooters 

All other photos Chris Banducci

Rolling East: Traveling in a Wheelchair

International Symbol for Disabled Person




This is a bit of a departure from my usual posts because it doesn’t speak directly about some aspect of life in Taiwan. I recently traveled to the US for an opportunity to attend a conference and catch up with some friends and relatives. Most of my traveling is done in a wheelchair. Oh, I can walk, but airports present a bit of a problem for disabled people. There are often long distances that must be covered, long lines (like at customs), or movements between gates, especially between domestic and international gates that must be traversed in ridiculously short periods of time. I can walk, but I’m afraid it looks a lot more like the “Zombie Shuffle” than walking, and running is completely out of the question.
Fortunately, most airlines provide wheelchair service to disabled passengers. They coordinate with the airports to transfer you between gates and airlines, to the luggage carousel, through customs and immigration, even out to the curb to the taxi stand. Wheelchair passengers are the first ones boarded and the last ones off. One real benefit is that the “Wheelchair Operators” are knowledgeable about the airport; transfer procedures and security processes and can just take you through the process without any hassle.

There is one drawback to wheelchair travel…security. Wheelchairs, for obvious reasons, can’t pass through metal detectors. For me to get out of the chair and try to walk through is a extremely difficult, so in every instance I was required to endure the dreaded TSA Pat Down Procedure.

I’m fairly pragmatic, I don’t like the intrusion into my personal space, I don’t like the erosion of my rights, but I really hate missing my flights, so I’m willing to endure it, if it will keep old women and babies with bombs off of planes. I’m not so sure about the effectiveness of this system, though, because we are so careful to avoid profiling and looking like we’re picking on people, that I’m afraid the ones who are the real threats are just getting on planes, flying around, and laughing at us.



Part of the Dreaded TSA Pat Down

 The TSA agents that I encountered were professional, polite and thorough. They explained the entire process, asked me if I wanted a private screening and then told me exactly what they were going to do just before they did it. Actually, I was impressed, with the care with which they violated me. I even had the thought that they probably didn’t want to do the pat down anymore that I wanted them to do it. As with anything professionalism varies from person to person. Maybe I was lucky and encountered only agents with a high degree of professionalism, in any case, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

I have to tell you after watching the videos and reading the reports I expected it to be horribly humiliating and dehumanizing but, really, it wasn’t. What was horribly humiliating and dehumanizing was high school PE class: Guys standing around snapping guys with towels and yukking it up about each other’s shortcomings, THAT was humiliating and dehumanizing. But throughout the entire pat down process, in three airports, I didn’t even see one rolled up towel and there were no snickers or nicknames.

I still think the whole thing is an intrusion on people’s rights and privacy. I still think the policy needs to be changed to be more realistic, but for the guys on the line who do the pat downs, when it’s handled professionally like it was with me, I appreciate their willingness to endure a lot more pat downs than I will have to endure. I travel occasionally; they have to do that every day.

But it didn’t stop at the US, when arriving in China, on the way to Taiwan; I had to go through the exact same process I did in the US. The only difference was that a young woman gave this old man the TSA Pat Down. My emotions in that situation were somewhat different.

In all other ways traveling in a wheelchair is a comfortable and less stressful way for disabled people to travel.

Other posts you may be interested in:


Cultural Unawareness:  The Wheels of Bureaucracy Turn Slowly
Random Asianess:  The Rest Stop

Photo Credit:  Pat Down procedure:  www.butyoudontlooksick.com