China Hash House Harriers

Yesterday, I embarked on the most unique, scenic, and adventurous run I've ever done! Well, to date anyway. I ran with the China Hash House Harriers...my first hash ever. We met in downtown Taipei near a subway station, and we were picked up by two large buses and taken to Da Xi, which I believe is east of Taipei, but I don't really have any idea. The bus took over an hour to get there but the traffic was horrendous. There were about 100 people at the run and I'd say a little more than half of the people actually ran. The basics of a hasher run: a hare starts before everyone else and creates a route by dropping little piles of flour every 50 meters or so. The whole run usually takes around an hour and during that hour, there are multiple check points. A check point is an X on the path. It means that the next trail mark is within 100 meters of the X, so everyone scatters at that point to try and find the next mark. However, false trails can also be created so victims can run on the new trail for a few minutes before finding 3 lines, meaning its a false trail and they have to back track. Once the correct trail is found, the leader yells "on on" and the run resumes.
It's a little hard to explain and do the run justice, but this course/experience was the most unique run I've done in my life. First of all, the way the hash works was so cool! The course itself was awesome, running through bamboo forests, along rivers, through farm plots, up extremely steep terrain, through rock fields, and along the ridges of some fairly tall mountains in Taiwan. Apparently, others in the group were saying that this run was not even the prettiest or most rugged. I'll describe those in detail later when they happen. The run took place mostly on established trails but that's not always the case. Bushwhacking is pretty fun! One thing I thought about after the run is that it's going to be like 90 degrees in the next month or two and that should make future runs a little more interesting. The run yesterday was probably in the 70s. I did not take any pictures because the run was a little too intense but check out www.chinahash.org. That website has some pictures of hash runs in the past.

After the run, there is a lot of drinking and socializing. I met some very interesting people. It made me realize that the US is not the center of the world. More than half of the group was composed of expatriates, but I would say that less than half of them have ever lived in the US or even considered it. In my mind, the US feels like the home base, and that everyone is out visiting somewhere else, but that's definitely not the case in the real world. I did grow up in Boulder so my view of the world is fairly skewed anyway. One funny thing I found out: one of the main coordinators of the hash went to CU, and another guy there, lived in Nederland for 6 years. A few other people had visited Boulder. It's a small world.

Until the next hash...or some other significant happening! The moral of the story, try a hash in your town. You won't regret it!