Category: creative

Taiwan: Hot pot, invisible mosquitos & air pollution

This is a drawing I did during my first year in Taiwan. I ended up staying in Taiwan for two years. But my first year was in Taichung and it was kinda a rough start. I stayed in some dodgy stinky hotels and it was 2-3 months before I found a job. The first room that I rented is where I started to do this drawing. It wasn’t a nice one though.

I had a really dirty roommate who would track all kinds of mud and dirt into the bathtub. It was disgusting. I didn’t stay there for too long. It was a real culture shock and not fun. Things improved though eventually and I got my own place to rent which was better.

Huo guo, bu jian wenzi, & kong chi wu ran (hot pot, invisible mosquitos and air pollution)

Pencil on paper drawing: Hot pot, invisible mosquitos and air pollution

The story behind it… Aside from where I was living (the apartment) when I drew this.. I think it’s about culture shock in a way and feeling uprooted hence my skinny legs, haha.

Hot pot (Huo guo)

Huo guo (hot pot) is really popular there but I never I got it. Didn’t really like it. Every time I ate it I would burn my mouth. You know you’re hungry and you want to eat, but hot pot is kinda slow going and you are cooking various foods over and into a soup. It’s something you usually eat with other people and it seemed like everyone loved it there except for me.

I was a strict vegetarian at the time and ate out at the restaurants every day. One cool thing about Taiwan is that they have some vegetarian restaurants for the Buddhists and that is where I ate everyday. Some of it was really good.

Invisible mosquitos

I remember trying to sleep in that room in my first apartment and hearing mosquitos buzzing around my head at night. Sometimes I would pull the sheets over my head to try to keep them away.

Air pollution

This probably bugged me the most about Taiwan. There are too many scooters, literally millions of scooters. The population of Taiwan is around 23 million and that has not changed much in 20 years.

I was primarily in Taiwan from 2004-2006 in Taichung and later Tainan and it may have changed since, but yeah so many scooters. So much noise and pollution from them. Taichung wasn’t the biggest city. 3rd biggest at the time. There were some buses that I used and I got around by bike too but that also wasn’t very fun as the streets were pretty crowded.

In my 2nd year I moved to Tainan where I did get a scooter and worked out in the “countryside” in Alian, Taiwan at a language school and commuted from Tainan.

Loads of scooters in Taiwan

My experience teaching English in Taiwan was tough, but a good.

Das EFX drawing circa 1993

Das EFX drawing 1993 pencil on paper

I drew this in high school. It was inspired by my friend Randy Mclaughlin and Das EFX. Randy was cool unlike most of the rednecks I went to high school with. He was a great artist who moved to the area from Baltimore. Super cool guy. We both loved Das Efx at the time and he did a drawing of one of them from the inside cover of the album and I thought it was so bad ass I had to do the other Andre Weston which is shown here.

Randy was a year younger than me. And the next year I heard he committed suicide. That was horrible.

Das Efx was one of my faves at the time. I listened to that tape so many times. I never quite got how Das Efx’s 2nd album didn’t do well. There were a couple songs on there that I still bump to this day. Thought those were incredible: Check it out, Underground Rappa. Those beats and rhymes hit so hard. Freak it was more popular, but pretty good too. Had those on vinyl too. The first two were my faves.

Classic 1993 hip hop. Remember bumping Tribe and Das on a long ass bus trip from NC up to NH.

Snow shaping examples

I’ve been working in the terrain park for the last 4 seasons and I love building jumps and shaping.

Check this before and after of a tank at Cannon. Shot right around the end of 2024 when we got 4 days of rain.

After the snowcat groomed it
After I shaped it with a rake

It’s somewhat rounded Holy Bowly style which is like the sickest park in the world. Check this Holy Bowly vid out.

Making fun stuff on the sides of trails

Then there is the side of the trail where you can sometimes find some fun stuff, but this wall ride I made was initially a pretty solid wall of snow left by the snowcat. A solid wall of snow is kinda dangerous and definitely not fun, but with a little handwork using a shovel I was able to turn it into a fun wallride.

I started knocking the wall down with a shovel.

Could also be turned into a hip style jump easy enough but I left this as a wall ride.

Shaping a long down tube

This was built for a “rail jam” Cannon had. It should have been called a “tube jam” because “rail jam” is so cliche. Every mountain has a rail jam. Call it something different at least!

I am not really a fan of rails (especially skinny ones) maybe PTSD from a fractured collar bone. Rails and boxes are kinda overkill at resorts if you ask me. I like snow features best.

Although, I don’t mind shaping around boxes and rails and I shaped most of this tube including the take off. One other person helped on one side.

I shaped the takeoff which went pretty good but it had chunks of chunder in it which is annoying
It’s a long tube with nice clean sides. This was just in that location for a couple of days.

Another wall turned into wallride

Wallride’s are sick. I love banks. It’s kind of a waste of snow to leave it as a wall when you could fairly easily turn it into a fun bank or jump.

No one can get it on it. Either they run into it or they fall off it which isn’t cool.
Now people can ride up on it and that’s fun.

Cannon Crust

Cannon Crust is it. It’s not a myth it’s the real deal. Cannon is icy. Take it or leave it. All the crust and ice you want is waiting for you.

Here’s a sticker I made. Drew a little picture of the yeti and with some photo editing I made the original Cannon Crust.

If you are interested in some $tickers you can leave a comment or send me an email: ileahy(at)hotmail.com

This is about Cannon mt ski area in Franconia, NH.

I made a stencil of the yeti and put it on this long barrel at Cannon too. He said take a hike cause he wants to keep Cannon all to himself.

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Fee fi fo fum… Universal income

Here’s a new video I made. Been working on it for a few weeks.

It was fun making the beat. It was very simple. I found this online drum machine called the Sampulator. It had some cool 808 style beats.

In the past I’ve messed around with Garageband which is sort of like cutting and pasting musical tracks together. IDK. It serves a purpose but there is no drum machine.

The drum machine is cool I like the idea of touching a key and sound coming out. No, not a piano sound, a beat.

I think in the future I will play around with some of these online drum machines or it would be cool to actually get one or if I could create one???

I made the mask out of paper mache, a vacuum cleaner hose, glue and bolts I had and a couple of cheap belts I got from the dollar store here.

I have a couple of other ideas for related videos in the future.

Anyways this is a song about universal income.

But it’s not serious it’s just a goofy rhyme.

Deadbeat

I’ve had in my mind that over the next year or so I will do 12 or more creative video/music types.  And here is one that I completed recently.

Well, it’s never really completed, but it’s enough for now. I got tired of working on it. Because I had some problem with the clipping and then I would lower it and it was fine in the software (old Garageband) and then export it and then it was distorted and I went round and round with that.

And just decided it’s good enough for now considering my computer and software is like 11 years old.

Maybe be too many tracks for Garageband.

But anyways here is the slow version.

I started off with a song that was one of my favorites from when I was around 12-13 and then took a bit out of it. I changed the speed and then created a new loop and added some samples from elsewhere.

Then the video I had lying around for a long time which seemed kind of fitting and a few pics of old paintings I did. I actually have a bunch of video, kinda creative stuff lying around that I plan on using in the future.

Deadbeat.