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 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 |
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| A view from my endless bike ride |
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| 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. |
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| 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.
