Close Encounters with Water Buffalo

When we last left our wanderlust-ing heroine, she was recovering from the raptures of Italy.  My next major opportunity for intercontinental exploration did not appear until my senior year in college.  My cloistered Mid-Western music school had finally decided that maybe, just maybe, students of classical music might benefit from time spent in Europe.  You know, the place where this stuff was written.  Enter stage left: a semester in Vienna, appropriately decked in golden Klimt finery.  I immediately knew that this trip must be mine.  Nothing would stop me.  I would be victorious.  If memory serves me correctly, my quest to attain Viennese glory involved the procuring of a sketchy sublet-er, the ending of a relationship, and finally an interview with the musical powers that be in which I faced the challenge of explaining to them how I would manage to complete my graduation requirements even though this trip would expressly keep me from completing some of the necessary courses.  My justification went something like this,

"Don't worry, I'll figure it out."

The members of the committee stared at me in bemused confusion.

"No really, I will.  I'm not sure how I will, but I'll do it.  Because when I want to do something, I get it done.  I make it happen.  And this is going to happen."

The members of the committee were now trying to conceal their guffaws.  They were not entirely successful.  But, nonetheless, they approved my application, and off to Vienna I went.  And yes, I did graduate on time, though I could not tell you how I "made it happen".  I'm pretty sure mental breakdowns and red wine were involved.  And maybe a few of my roommate's research papers.

And that was the last time I ever exhibited such passionate determination and resolve.  Oh sure, I've worked towards things, and I've wanted things really, really, REALLY badly.  But I've never felt that potent mix of unstoppable chutzpah and infantile stupidity.  Until, that is, I went up against the Caoling Historic Trail.

The Caoling Historic Trail is known as one of those trails in Taiwan you just have to do.  As in, if you do one hike in Taiwan, this is it.  I've wanted to do this hike for over a year, and November was officially the Caoling Silver Grass Festival, so I figured there couldn't be a better time.  Of course I planned to do this alone, because I find hiking alone to be extremely peaceful and centering.  Also, Taiwan is so densely populated that you're never entirely alone.  Or so I thought.

Let's address my preparations: one bottle of water, one bottle of tea, lunch, and snacks.  More than enough, since my guide book said that the trail only takes 3-4 hours.  Well, one of my guide books said that.  Others said 7-8 hours.  But what's an hour or four between friends, right?  Note that my preparations specifically do not include rain gear.  Or a flashlight.  This will become important later.

It just looks like such an innocent little trail...

I got a late start, (because I sleep like the boozy cabaret singer that I am) so I started at the end closer to Taipei, Fulong Beach.  My end point was Daxi, where I planned to relax over a lovely seafood dinner.  Along the way I was promised stunning views of the pacific and rolling fields.  The first two hours were refreshing, and occasionally hilarious.  Although I went on a weekday, the trails were pretty crowded with elderly Taiwanese hiking groups.  Let me say, that I do love elderly Taiwanese hiking groups.  Everyone is so friendly, so helpful.  They offer you tea.  They encourage you with calls of "Jaiyo!  Jaiyo!", the Taiwanese equivalent of, "You go, girl!".  And they also play inspirational music.  Rather loudly.  And their inspirational music consists of "Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier", and doo-wop songs about infidelity in the 1950's.  After two hours I made it past all the traditional sights.  I had quelled the wild winds.  I had seen the tiger inscription. I had reached a scenic overlook.  At this point I found myself facing a crossroads.  Many people chose to turn back.  I could go to Dali, which was a only few kilometers away.  Or, I could climb really high things and hit the Taoyuan Valley and finish in Daxi, as originally intended.  Of course I chose to press on.  I got to the next, even more scenic outlook, and had my lunch.  And oh, the vista.  It was stunning.  As a city girl, I do love Taipei.  It is amazingly designed, and offers a variety of daydreams and distractions.  But it's rural Taiwan that really sets the island apart.  I enjoyed my lunch while watching the mists rolling in over the shore, reveling the green, the brown, and the blue.

.....and 30 seconds later those mists had covered the entire mountain side and I couldn't see more than a few feet in front of my hand.  Oh, and it was raining too.  Pop quiz, hotshot - you're hiking alone on a mountain in Taiwan.  You can't see, and it's raining.  You only have 3 hours of daylight left.  And you still can't really speak Chinese, goddammit.  What do you do?  WHAT DO YOU DO????

Just imagine how awesome this photo would be,
were it in focus.

Okay, a few of you probably said, "shoot the hostage".  Hopefully most of you said, "turn back and go home."  I, of course, said "Daxi, or bust," and continued on my way.

I reached the top of the next hill, and accidentally stumbled on to the Lord of the Rings set.  It looked as though I was walking along the edge of the world.  No stunning views of the Pacific for me.  And no one else on the trail.  Just endless fog and tiny stone path.

What I wouldn't give for a helpful elf right now.

And still, I pressed on.  Daxi couldn't be that much farther, right?  I mean, I had been hiking for close to three hours, so, according to some estimates I had a mere...five hours to go.  You can do this, Smela.  you can do this,

And then, a Water Buffalo.

Friends, sometimes a woman comes face to face with the abyss, and sometimes that abyss is populated by feral Water Buffalo.  I inched forward.  Horned heads jerked up from their grassy snack, and I found myself peering into the black eyes of bovine oblivion.  In one fluid movement I turned around and walked quickly, calmly, and in a totally nonthreatening manner back up the path.  And there I sat, contemplating my options.  I had been hiking for 4 hours.  I was probably 2 hours from Daxi.  It made no sense to turn back, but I was scared.  The way back was familiar, known.  The way forward, treacherous, and filled with rabid Water Buffalo.  Why, Smela, why!  Why did you undertake this ridiculous adventure on your own?  Without ample supplies?  And with only a few short hours of daylight on your side?  But then I remembered equally foolish 21 year old Andi, who set out with absurd determination, and yet somehow managed.  I can't really say that she always succeeded.  But she managed.  There was, ever and always, only one way.  Forward.

I scurried past the herd of Water Buffalo while projecting a servility I haven't felt since music school voice lessons, and was rewarded with a sudden clearing of the valley.  All around me were hills of green, sometimes muted, sometimes, brilliant.  The sky was a bruised indigo.  In the distance to my left, civilization twinkled.  Down the mountain to my right, the white breakers yearned for sand.  I had reached the perfect moment: totally alone, enveloped in the beauty of my foster country.

Light was fading, and the last part of my journey was still ahead of me, the Daxi Forest Trail.  And this last part was most definitely the worst.  Dark, jungle-like vegetation broken only by the pathetic light of my cellphone and the screech of nocturnal creatures.  Two hours later I reached the end of the trail, a broken woman.  I was soaked. My legs screamed like tortured banshees.  My water was long gone.  Basically, I was exhausted and pathetic.  Delusional, if you will. Why I had attempted this?  I wasn't ready for this.  But it had happened.  I made it happen.  There was a certain satisfaction in that.  I still had a bit of my stubborn pride.  I knew I wasn't using it in the right way, in a meaningful way.  But as I rode the train back to Taipei I took comfort in knowing that I hadn't lost it entirely.  
          

Truer words were never spoken.

Sending a postcard to my 16 year old self

The first time I did any kind of significant travel was at the age of 16 with my high school choir.  Our whirlwind tour of Italy featured unbelievable food and architecture, glorious music, and much fainting.  There was a general, languorous descent into love, and many a night was spent singing duets from hotel balconies and pining for the unattainable of every stripe.  I was not immune to this intoxication.  I fell headlong, crazy-faced in love - with travel.

My mental postcards from that trip begin at the airport.  On our way out of security my friends and I witnessed a poignant farewell.  A young woman, perhaps in her 20's (and therefore worldly and wise in our naive eyes) had just retrieved her luggage from the scanner belt.  In her long, flowing, patterned skirt and slightly ratty t-shirt, this tall brunette was the epitome of college nonchalance.  We watched as she waved goodbye to a man separated from her by only the scanner and one inept guard (this was the 90's, a time when you could accompany a loved one almost up to the gate, or even onto the plane if the conventions of romantic comedy demanded it).  He gave her a warm, encouraging smile.  She tried to reciprocate, her lips curving up slightly while her brows knit together in pain.  She waved, and then turned to begin the long walk down the concourse ahead of us.  My friends and I commented on the sweetness of the scene, and then continued to speculate about our upcoming adventure.  We halted our manic conversation, however, when the young woman abruptly dropped her bag to the ground.  Her head fell forward into her hands, and her shoulders heaved in one long sob.  We held our breath.  This was it - this was love, passion, and despair.  This was romance on a cinematic scale.  This was what 16 year old girls lived for.  Would she turn and run back to him?  Or was the promise of the adventure ahead too potent, too seductive?  The young woman raised her head, breathed deeply, picked up her bag again, and walked briskly down the hall, her long brown hair swaying in time with her steps, her body still shaking slightly from her tears.  She hadn't turned around, not even for one last look.  We hung back a few moments out of respectful awe for her glorious pain.  And I suspect we were envious not just of their love, but also of their separation.

This addresses one of the strange attractions of travel.  The joy of the journey is always accompanied by the pain of departure.  There is no way to exist in two places at once, and therefore there is no way ever to be perfectly at peace.  Trips end, homes are abandoned, and no matter which path you choose, you will inevitably lose as much as you gain.  It's just a question of choice.  I find myself fairly obsessed with these choices lately, as I prepare to go back to New York for a month, which is really just long enough to make me idealize both my old home and my current one here in Taipei.

Whenever and wherever I travel around Taiwan I always make plans for a return journey, but the reality is that these are all most likely one-time visits.  There's just too much - too much space, too much wanderlust, and never enough time.  A great inertia envelopes me when I realize that I haven't been taking full advantage of my time here, and that frankly I don't really know what it would look like if I did.  My most recent trip was to Yilan, a lovely area of the island about an hour from Taipei by bus.  The excursion included all the traits of a typical Andi trip: horrible transportation decisions, endless wrong turns, and prodigious amounts of sweat.  But I love my travel disasters, I really do.  I don't mind that it takes me 12 hours to reach a cafe just down the street, or that the locals assume I've lost my mind when I ask them if I can reach mainland China via bicycle.  That's just part of the adventure.  I do get frustrated when I recognize that these detours come at the expense of certain items on my itinerary.  But then again I feel the same way about the life choices that have closed off other avenues to me.  I will never be a ballerina-fireman.  And I'll just have to learn to accept that, because if I had become a ballerina-fireman I wouldn't have experienced have of the life I did choose.  So let's look at both versions of my trip to Yilan - the trip I wanted, and the trip I got.

Where I planned to stay: a cozy, adorable minsu (aka Taiwanese Bed and Breakfast) in the middle of an agricultural wonderland.

Where I actually stayed: a rather anonymous hotel in the middle of Luodong, a town that looks just like Taipei.  But the hotel was owned by a wonderful family that immediately adopted me.  They gave me aloe for  my sunburn, dried kumquats, and authentic Yilan cow's tongue!  (It's a cookie, people calm down).  They were worried about the dangers facing a young woman traveling alone in Taiwan.  This was particularly sweet because there are, in fact, no dangers facing a young woman traveling alone in Taiwan, other than heatstroke.

Where I planned to visit: some sort of black sand beach and an island that looks like a turtle.
What I actually saw: all that is accessible by bike (and much that isn't).  I circled Meihua Lake at dusk along with families in little motorized bike caravans.   I biked down endless highways to reach the National Center for Traditional Arts.  There I browsed handicraft shops and watched men dressed in beetle costumes engage in classical Taiwanese break-dancing.  I chilled out with Taiwanese families at a rare cold spring (one of only two in the world).  I dipped my feet in the cool waters of Wufengqi Waterfalls, surrounded by groups Taiwanese teenagers splashing and screaming, and elderly Taiwanese couples lying on the rocks and softly singing.  Oh, and at night?  Some sort of out door entertainment event featuring really inappropriate high school dance troupes with routines choreographed to gangsta rap, and a cover band playing a hilarious version of Enter Sandman (most of the lyrics were indecipherable, but "rrrrrroff to never never land" was crystal clear.)

What I wouldn't give to see these guys on the A train

A view from my endless bike ride

A small moment of quiet perfection

Where I planned to eat: every famous food stall at the Luodong night market.
Where I actually ate: places that didn't involve waiting on line for 30 minutes for a bowl of soup.  Luodong night market is one of the largest and most crowded in Taiwan, and frankly I didn't have the patience to wait for the ultimate lamb soup, or the most famous scallion pancake, so instead I ate the slightly less famous scallion pancakes which were more than delicious enough for my ignorant western palette.  It was more like a scallion doughnut really, and was one of the culinary highlights of the trip.  I mean, who can pass up a flaky, buttery crust surrounding a a moist center of pillow-y dough and sweet green onions?  Of course, the whole thing was spiced with the requisite Taiwanese salt/pepper.  I'm not really sure what that stuff is, but it's ubiquitous.  I'm surprised they don't sprinkle it in beer here.

See that line stretching into the neon-lit distance?
All for sake of Taiwanese burritos.

Mmmm....scallion doughnut....

As always, I'm sharing the bare minimum.  What about the street-side candy puller?  And the Chinese Opera singers?  And the red bean tapioca ice?  What's my criteria?  How do I decide what is worthy of relating?  How do I decide anything?  That's the question. In fact, that's the question I went to Yilan to answer.  How long am I staying here, and where am I going next?  I came back without answers.  I don't know where I'll be in a year - New York?  Hanoi?  Buenos Aries?  Istanbul?  I can tell you that tomorrow I'll start my day with a waterfall hike and end it by drinking with friends in the park.  I can tell you that next week I'll make my way to NYC by way of Waikiki.  And I can tell you that I'm trying, trying every day, to accept the uncertainty.

When I returned from that epic Italian trip I felt gutted.  We met up with our families in the high school parking lot, and I still remember the feeling of driving home that night.  Everything felt wrong.  Absolutely wrong.  It was infinitely wrong to be home and safe, instead of being on the move, traveling to the next ridiculous destination.  It felt as though chains were descending on me, in a large part because I was 16, and I FELT THINGS DEEPLY IN MY ARTISTIC SOUL, DAMMIT!!  But in the midst of my maudlin teenage meltdown I did make a decision that travel would be a significant part of my life.  It's a decision that I avoided fulfilling for a long time, so when I think about my concern over my rootlessness now I take comfort in the idea that my 16 year old self would probably look at  me say, "are you kidding me?  this is a dream, you idiot!  you're living my dream!"  And then 16 year old Andi would probably run off somewhere to listen to Tori Amos and write bad poetry.  I can only hope to live up to her expectations.

Some thoughts on hedonism...

My line of work necessitates a precise vocabulary.  Take, for example, hedonism.  The commonly understood definition is: sensual self-indulgence.  But there's another definition, which I find equally intriguing: the pursuit of pleasure.  Why does this matter to me?  Admittedly, I have a test prep teacher's obsession with verbal minutiae.  But there's more to it than that.  In recent years I've attempted to embrace my hedonistic nature, but I'm still not entirely sure which camp I fall into: pursuit, or indulgence?   I have a fairly constant need for movement; I get wanderlust restlessness regularly (I'm predictable in my unpredictability).  But there's so much to be said for steak and red wine at home during a downpour.  And by that, I mean steak.  fried in butter.  At 4pm.  The wine needs no explanation.

But indulgence isn't as interesting as pursuit, so let's focus on the movement.  Before returning to my hedonistic Taipei pleasure dome in preparation for the summer teaching marathon, I explored a bit of Formosa.  Most guidebooks will tell you that no trip to Taiwan is complete without a visit to Sun Moon Lake, so I made my pilgrimage there, and it was nice, and I'll blog about it (in like 7 months or something), but in my humble opinion it does not hold a candle to the magic and splendor that is Penghu.  Ah, Penghu.  Let me sing of your seafood, praise your windy landscape, and marvel at the kindness of your people.  Penghu, land of squid, land of cactus.  Penghu, you are a 50 minutes by plane from Taipei, and yet you hold mysteries unknown to the rest of this island-country.  Penghu, wo ai!

Penghu is an archipelago off the west coast of Taiwan.  Since it's made of basalt, its terrain provides a stark contrast to the lush, mountainous jungles found on the rest of the island.  Instead of Jurassic Park ferns, it boasts aloe and cacti.  Penghu is widely known for two things: wind and seafood.  I managed to avoid the first, and revel in the second.  I spent my days there biking. scooting, and eating.  I love harbor towns, which I suppose makes sense since I grew up in one.  There is something that feels so incredibly right about the smell of brine and the clang of boat rigging.  My home base was the Moscor International Youth Hostel, run by perhaps the nicest people in all of Taiwan.  Jeffrey and his wife provided me with a vintage bike and copious amounts of travel suggestions (they were also more than willing to write down said travel tips in Chinese, since this sad Waigouren is still functionally illiterate.)

Undoubtedly I have a yearning for new environments and experiences.  But upon landing in a new locale, I'm easily contented.  My first evening in Penghu was perfect: I ate this absurd fish soup consisting of a gooey broth juxtaposed with pieces of spicy fried fish indigenous to the region.  I can admit that when I looked at this soup I was skeptical.  But I forgot rule #1 - trust the locals.  Even the semi-locals.  My hostel-mate was a college girl studying in the south of Taiwan, and she led me through a night of culinary greatness.  After the soup we went to the itty-bitty Penghu night market for fried squid.  And suddenly, I knew.  Penghu and squid.  A marriage so perfect that George R.R. Martin would certainly kill one of them off by the third book/season.  Penghu and squid go together like rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong.  Penghu and squid, well, they complete me.  In a way that Tom Cruise and his creepy Scientology never will.  Oh, and what did we wash this bounty down with?  Bright purple cactus juice, the beverage of Penghu champions.  And then, sated, it was on to the Penghu Fireworks festival, featuring Asian boy bands and a general disregard for deodorant.  I rode my rickety bike home enveloped in a seaside embrace.

My saviors

So, um, despite my best efforts, I don't really speak Chinese.  And I don't really have a valid drivers license.  And this can be an issue in an area with few English speakers and even fewer cabs.  My first full day in Penghu  was a comedy of errors.  A Smela-level state of absurdity.  But, as always, things somehow worked out. When I missed the bus from the really old and big tree, generous food stall owners took me in, called me a cab, and gave me free beverages because "you are a friend now".  And then, when the cab driver couldn't take me from the turtle temple to the traditional village he arranged for a crazy woman in the Taiwanese equivalent of a burka to shuttle me to my next destination.  True, she spent most of the time yelling at me in Chinese, but beggars can't be choosers.  And I did manage to get back in time to enjoy a lovely bike ride by the shore.  And eat more squid.  Yeah, I ate fried squid every day.  You gotta problem with that?

Day two was island hopping.  Luckily for me, no one on the far-reaching islands cares if you have a valid drivers license; they'll give you a scooter regardless.  They'll also put a sticker on you so that people know which boat you belong to when you're wandering the harbor, sunburned, weeping, a broken woman, trying to find your way home.  Not that this happened to me or anything.  *Ahem* Chimei and Wangan were stunning.  I rode around the practically desolate islands, drinking in the colors: brilliant blue water against a yellow, rocky shoreline.  Green succulents amidst withered brown grass. This was my world, if only for a few hours.   I felt such a sense of calm, of peace.  Of person.  There was only one way to honor this.  More fried squid.*

Really?  You're surprised?

Super Asian

My time in Penghu was woefully short.  I did not cavort on the white sand beaches.  I only tried one of the local melons.  And I was only partially adopted by the hostel owners; we never had a chance to fill out the official paperwork.  But Penghu will live on my memory as my rugged Taiwanese paradise.  I will return with a valid license and most definitely an appetite.

People of Peghu: hide your squid.

* A note about the squid - the texture is firm, just short of chewy.  And the flavor, oh my, so buttery, so right!  The street stalls served it deep fried with fresh basil, garlic, and the mysterious Taiwanese salt-pepper.  One can only dream of being worthy of such deliciousness.  And goddammit.  We haven't even talked about the oysters.  The oysters!  Gran dio!  Giuosto ciel!

For dessert I present to you:

A very old tree

A very young boy band

A turtle

And Taiwan

Adventures in Babysitting Small Asian Grandmas

A High School acquaintance of mine introduced me to a book that amounted to a young woman’s modern etiquette guide.  I believe it was called something like, 50 Things Every Girl Should Know.  Or, Our Bodies, Our Manners, Ourselves.  Or, Well-Mannered Girls Who Run with the Wolves.  But no matter.  It was filled with useful tidbits such as: “Ladies, if we all simply sat on toilet seats instead of squatting and spraying we would never have to deal with dirty toilets, and the world would be a better place.  So let’s all agree to sit.”  On writing* to someone after neglecting a correspondence: “Ladies, you know it was rude not to write.  Your friend knows it was rude.  Don’t belabor the point.  Apologize once, and then pick up where you left off.”  Gentle readers, I aspire to become a cutting-edge, cultivated lady.  Therefore, I’m sorry.  Now let’s say nothing more about the three month blog gap.  Let’s just pick up where we left off. 

Dumplings can only take a girl so far.  At some point her soul needs sustenance as well.  (Besides, at this point the dumplings are giving me the skin and body of a 16 year old.  And by that, I mean my 16 year old skin and body.  This is not a good thing.)  I’ve now been removed from the hotbed of cultural activity that is New York City for about five months.  Of course, as I’m still living in an international city, my current creative dry spell is really for want of trying more than anything else.  Attempts to remedy the situation are currently underway.  First stop: the Verdi Requiem at the National Concert Hall.  What a perfect introduction to Taipei’s classical arts scene.  The hall itself is stunning, all rich burgundy velvet and ivory marble, with an organ surrounded by intricate wooden carvings.  It expertly walks the East/West divide.  What really stands out about the hall, however, is the acoustic.  It is bright.  I’m talking tangerine-lemon-sunshine bright.  Like much of my generation, I’ve been predisposed by the modern recording industry to appreciate just such a sound, and appreciate it I do.  The acoustic worked well for the soloists, who generally had a covered technique which might have been lost in a duller hall.  It did no favors for the choir, unfortunately.  The sopranos had a rather thin sound which the hall highlighted.  But the real musical marriage was between the Hall and the National Symphony Orchestra.  The orchestra was tight, with an enveloping, burnished sound that filled the hall confidently.

The highlight of the evening took place offstage, however.  As in the US, much of the audience was well past retirement age.  Seated behind me was a withered nonagenarian who was reacting to the performance in a rather…aggressive manner.  True, the NSO does have a superb percussion section.  But I found it a bit distracting when the Small Asian Grandma stomped her feet in time with the music during every climactic moment.  Luckily, the old lady’s daughter realized that this wasn’t entirely appropriate, so she attempted to shush the venerable aged woman.  But Small Asian Grandma was having none of it, and responded by hauling off and smacking her daughter’s arm.  Rather violently.  And loudly.  Repeatedly.  I took this in stride until the Libera me.  This is a fiendishly difficult movement for the soprano, filled with sudden dynamic shifts, and requiring supreme control.  When the first floating high note was marred by the sound of familial violence I could restrain myself no longer.  I turned around and gave Small Asian Grandma “the look”.  You know the one.  The one that says, “Hey, in case you forgot, there’s a live performance going on here, and I’d prefer to listen to it without the accompaniment of your stomping and slapping.  Thanks.”  This may have been a tactical error.  Small Asian Grandma leaned forward in her seat, craned her neck, and glared at me.  I, in turn, leaned forward in terror, convinced that I was about to become a featured player in this domestic tragedy.  I could see the headlines: Saucy Waiguoren Assaulted by 110 Year Old Asian Midget at Sparsely Attended Classical Concert.  I was spared the likely concussion by the quick-witted daughter, who jerked her mother back before impact.  Alas, the daughter thus incurred a veritable barrage of kicking, slapping, and punching.  This built to a rollicking crescendo matched by the percussion, driving us forward until the final moments of the piece echoed throughout the hall:

BA dum BA dum BA dum BA dum

*stomp stomp stomp stomp*

Libera me!

*thwack*

Final chord

Truly, this woman had remarkable timing.

So what did I learn, dear reader?  First, I will have to pursue art more diligently and deliberately while here in Taipei.  I may have to fight for it.  And second, I’ll have to wear protective gear when I see Renee perform in May.  And perhaps bring weaponry.  Now would be a good time to hone those ninja skills. 

* When I was in High School people wrote letters.  Yes, I am old.

Have fun, go mad

“Time doth flit; oh shit.”

~Dorothy Parker



Back in high school I had a teacher who was downright obsessed with living an attentive life.  He railed against us sleep-walking teenagers, as we wasted our poor, unexamined lives in a haze of mediocrity.  At the time I didn’t really understand his plight because to a 16 year old EVERYTHING is vital, immediate, and most likely painful.  Unexamined life?  All I did was to examine my life, and usually found it wanting.  But I certainly never found it to be fleeting.  My days were raw, my emotions exposed, and it seemed that I had set up shop in adolescence indefinitely.

DV, savoring the now.

These days I live the cliché – the passage of time somehow does speed up as one ages.  Now I comprehend the desire to shake someone out of her dreamlike state.  Of course, what I really want is to be the shak-ee, not the shaker.  Even with all the turmoil and change of the past year I still feel like I’m letting the days go by.  I still don’t know how I got here.  And yet, here I am, in Taipei again, and already mostly settled in.  I’m trying to savor more, to live in the chaos and contradiction, but I still feel like I’m floating.  A dumpling here, a steamed bun there.  I’m not sure how much I’m really taking in.  I felt this way after my time here last summer, during my month of travel, and also during my time back in New York.  I want things to stop for one moment, to slow down just enough for me to see the view from my window.  That doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon.  Also, this is beginning to sound like the hackneyed whining of the newly 35. So please accept these brief images from the past two months.

Most days I wake to the smell of hot oil and the sound of babies crying.  I snuggle deep into my mosquito net shrouded cocoon and contemplate the day.  Work starts at 12:30pm, and I’m either a 30 minute walk, 20 minute subway ride, or 10 minute cab ride away.  (Yes, this is pure luxury after 12 years of painful MTA commutes.  I am free, I tell you!  Free!)  Breakfast might be a scallion pancake topped with egg, soy sauce, and la, or perhaps a CheeseBacon Waffle™.  Of course there will be bing café (yes, I know three Chinese words now.  And yes, they still all apply to food.  And yes, one of those words is “CheeseBacon”).  I can bring these items onto the train, but I cannot consume them on it.  If I try to do so a mysterious Asian will appear and kindly request that I spit out and throw away the offending food stuff.  No caning, mind you, just a gentle request to follow the rules.  She then ninjas back into the general throng. 

So many questions, finally answered.

My place of work could be mistaken for your average American office – until you reach the bathroom.  I have been “gently” mocked in the past for my delicate sensibilities regarding bodily waste.  Well, I’ve kind of had to get over that here.  First of all, squat toilets.  Yeah.  They’re exactly what they sound like.  And they are well-loved here.  Many public buildings will have a 50-50 split, squat and non-squat.  The non-squat toilets will have instructions detailing proper usage – i.e., do not climb on top of the toilet.  And certainly do NOT put paper into the commode.  Our delicate island’s plumbing can’t handle it.  So… um… yeah.  The used toilet paper just stays there.  Used.  In the trash bin.  In the bathroom.  Oh the humanity.   

Never mess with Captian the Diner.  Literally

And that’s not the extent of Taiwan’s strange trash culture.  Taipei is an extremely crowded place, and if we were all to just pour our trash out on the curb it would make NYC look like an oasis of sanitary splendor.  So instead, we have to carry our garbage directly to the garbage man.  Luckily, this process provides endless entertainment for the inept ex-pat.  At 10pm the garbage truck will announce its presence by playing a horrifying midi-version of Für Elise.  Upon hearing the first poignant electronic strains everyone in the neighborhood emerges from their lairs with bags of sorted garbage.  And just like that, the trash dash begins.  Some trash goes to your average, Western style truck, but the really lucky garbage goes to elderly Asians wearing odd hats.  Take, for example, the cardboard man.  This ancient little fellow stands at the corner with his motorbike cart piled high with cardboard stuck in every which way and eagerly takes all our recyclable offerings.  Where does he go?  What does he do with all of it?  He’s like the patron saint of paper waste, smiling his toothless grin, happily relieving us of our Taiwan beer cases and noodle box packaging, and then softly melting into the humid night. 

After the 10pm garbage block party it’s time for an evening run in my neighborhood park.  In NYC (or at least in Washington Heights) this would be the prime time to meet up with drug dealers and prostitutes, but in Taipei I mingle with senior citizens and families.  Okay, maybe the senior citizens are really just looking for the next fix, but at least they hide it well.  The city is both nocturnal and safe.  It’s a wonderful feeling.  I’ve grown up with the unfortunately common assumption that all women are targets.  The world is not kind.  The boogeyman is waiting to get you.  Not so here.   Also, I’ve probably got 50 lbs and two feet on the local boogeyman, and could probably drop kick him down the road if need be.   So I run around the perimeter of the park, carefree, listening to trip hop and fado, because that’s how tortured and brooding cabaret artists roll, I guess.

No worries, I could totally kick his ass.

 

The late night finds me enjoying the splendor of my Taipei apartment, which kind of looks like a drug-induced Ikea fever dream, or a 12 year old Moroccan girl’s club house.  I chat with friends, I write, I read, I loaf, and I pine for my other city.  I slip off to sleep amid the gentle caterwauling of the neighborhood cats, and marvel at the mysteries of feline stamina.  The morning may bring a hike in the local mountains, or a trip to a tropical island.  Most likely it will involve scallion pancakes.  Maybe this time I’ll manage not to miss the moment.  But if I do, I know I've got good people around to help me get it back.