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.